A Federal High Court in Abuja has ruled that the refusal of the Federal Ministry of Finance and theto provide an Abuja-based journalist, Godsgift Onyedinefu, with the information she requested in 2019 on the cost of Nigeria’s participation in the 2018 World Cup amounted to an unlawful violation of her right of access to information. The court aso ordered them to pay her N2 million as damages.
Ms Onyedinefu is asking the court to direct the ministries and their ministers to make available to her within seven days of the court’s judgment, the information she requested from them pursuant to the FOI Act, among other things, on the total cost of Nigeria’s participation in the · A declaration that the failure and/or refusal by the defendant to make the information available to her amounts to wrongful denial of access to information under section 7 of the Act and that their failure and/or refusal to give her a written notice stating the reason for the denial of the information she requested is wrongful, unlawful and constitutes a gross violation of section 4 of the Act.
· The sum of N1 million against each of the ministries as exemplary and aggravated damages for the unlawful violation of her right of access to information established and guaranteed by Sections 1 and of the Act and wrongful denial of access to information under Section 7 of the Act.