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A Deputy Director of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Johnson Oludare, has said the Whistleblower bill has been sent to President Bola Tinubu for onward transmission to the National Assembly.
The Whistle-blowing Policy, facilitated by the Federal Ministry of Finance, was established to encourage citizens to voluntarily disclose information about fraud, bribery, and looted government funds.
It came into effect in December 2016.
However, the Federal Government approved a new Whistle-blower draft bill in December 2022, as the original policy was losing momentum.
The bill was transmitted to the National Assembly, but the Assembly could not complete its work on it before its session ended.
Speaking at a conference on the Whistleblow policy organised by the African Centre for Media and Information Literacy in Abuja on Thursday, Oludare said immediately after Tinubu’s administration came on board, the ministry had several presentations after which the bill was sent to the president.
He explained that the ninth assembly could not pass the bill because it was an election year.
Oludare said, “We recall that the Federal Government of Nigeria instituted the Nigerian Whistleblower Policy in December 2016, and over the year, in the course of implementation, the participating members of the anticorruption agencies in Nigeria came together, and they have come up with a draft bill. That bill was presented and approved by the Federal Economic Council in December 2022 and that bill was transmitted to the president at that time and it was forwarded to the National Assembly.
“However, because it was an election period and the ninth National Assembly could not conclude legislative work on that bill. And so, immediately this government came on board, again, we made presentations.
“That bill was sent back to Mr. President and to be presented to the 10th National Assembly. At the moment, that is where we are and we do believe that the 10th National Assembly will be able to do justice to the bill. So we hope very soon that the National Assembly will be engaging Nigerians on this bill. “
Also speaking, the Coordinator, AFRICMIL, Chido Onumah, stated that the whistleblower policy in the country had been abandoned due to a lack of protection for whistleblowers.
Chido said, “Unfortunately, whistleblowers in Nigeria face a lack of a safe and enabling environment that can allow them to report wrongdoing without fear of reprisals.
“This is compounded by the non-adherence to access to information laws that would enable them and others to obtain information held by public institutions and empower them to hold powerful individuals and corporate entities to account, as well as the lack of effective and independent judicial institutions that would provide access to justice and valuable remedies for human rights violations.
“The result of this attack is a steady reduction in the volume of disclosures recorded over the years, leading to the perception that the whistleblowing policy has been abandoned.”
