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Faulty Presentation Stalls Reps Passage of FOI Bill - Hon Sokonte
There are strong indications that the failure of the Freedom of Information Bill at the House of Representatives may not be unconnected with the faulty handling of the bill by the sponsors which has continued to hit on the brick wall ever since it surfaced on the floor of the lower chamber of the National Assembly this second time.

It would be recalled that the same FOI Bill which also found entry into the Senate, courtesy of the chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Information, Senator Anyogu Eze almost the same time it was presented to the House by Hon Abike Dabiri has recorded tremendous progress at the upper chamber which has cater-pulted it to the third reading, it has continued to record failures on the floor of the lower House.

Niger Delta STANDARD investigation on the circumstances leading to the unfortunate failures witnessed by the Bill, popularly acclaimed to be one of the ingredients of Democracy and Rule of law, has revealed that it is either the rejection of the bill emanated from its faulty presentation or ignorance of members on the import of the bill as further orchestrated by the views of their constituents.

Making this confirmation in an exclusive chat with the Niger Delta Standard yesterday, a member of House of Representatives, Hon (Dr) Davies Sokonte maintained that the failure of the Bill in the House of Representatives could be traced to the quality of presentation by the sponsors of the bill and not necessarily out of the hatred of members to the bill. His words, "If the FOI bill has failed to scale the second reading on the floor of the House, it means that the bill is either faulty because of the manner of its presentation by the sponsors or that the people we represent don't want it. You should not forget that our mandate here is to our people and not to the Journalists.

We like to feel the pulse of our constituents on such delicate matters as the bill before us and this is what guides our debates on the floor of the House". He argued that if the FOIB is as popular as the media make Nigerians to know, why is it hitting the rock each time it comes up on the floor of the House and yet anytime it fails to record the expected success, the Nigerian masses remain nonchalant about it, unlike other popular bills and motions that record the same flaw on the floor of the House or Senate.

"I think the question the Media should ask is, if the FOIB enjoys the popularity that it accords it why does the Nigeria public not castigate the House for not passing the bill even when it has become obvious that it has almost scaled passage at the upper chamber of the National Assembly. So, I guess there a fundamental problems with the way and manner the bill was presented in the House," Sokonte noted.

According to the representative of Bonny/Degema Federal Constituency in Rivers state, what the Mass Media and Civil Society groups need to do is not castigating the House for failing to pass the bill but to support the House by repackaging and representing the bill for passage. Meanwhile the truth is that if the House insists on dropping the FOIB even when it has succeeded in scaling final passage on the floor of the Senate as we shall soon witness, it would still not be given assent by the president because doing so would be unparliamentary.

Ignatius Okorocha, Abuja

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