Abuja — Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria , HURIWA, a Non-Governmental Organisation has asked Nigerians of all strata to demand from the National Assembly members the passage of the Freedom of Information(FoI) Bill into a law .

This according to the group should be without the undercurrent manipulation and inclusion of undemocratic clauses like seeking the leave of a Federal or State High Court as currently contemplated by the Senator Anyaogu Eze-led Senate Media Committee even as it faulted Senator Eze's flimsy excuses for inserting the strange proviso.

Eze who defended the recent inclusion into the original bill sponsored by the Deputy Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba of a provision that any Nigerian interested in obtaining any public information under the yet to be legislated Freedom of Information statutes must first of all approach a Federal High Court or a state High Court with application for leave to seek the said information, stated that his committee did that in good faith.

HURIWA which criticized the backdoor smuggling by the Senator Eze-led Committee of what it considers as 'anti-transparency provision', stated in a release yesterday by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko that there is no justification whatsoever for the action .

It alleged that Senator Eze and his co-travelers were simply carrying out a hidden agenda of a cartel in the Nigerian political environment who are afraid of openness, transparency and accountability because that will upstage the current status quo which favours secretive running of all government administrative and financial dealings.

The Group asserted that it was not shocked that the Senate Committee on Media and Information included the provision that will make information difficult to access by most Nigerians about the same time that the federal government through the Presidency compelled close senior aides of the president to swear an unpopular oath of Secrecy.

"The swearing of this oath of secrecy by senior political and economic aides of President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua and the inclusion of this strange and awkward provision in the original Freedom of Information Bill as currently being systematically executed by the Senator Eze-led committee is not a coincidence but what this sinister nexus shows is that the powers that be do not want an open society because it will hurt their secret agenda", HURIWA alleged.