The Media Rights Agenda (MRA) has urged the Federal Government to take urgent and concrete steps to strengthen legal and institutional protections for whistleblowers, in recognition of their critical role in exposing corruption, human rights abuses, and other wrongdoing.
In a statement issued on Monday and made available to The Guardian, the MRA described whistleblowers as a cornerstone of transparency, accountability, and good governance.
To mark this year’s World Whistleblowers’ Day, MRA stressed that whistleblowers serve the public interest by courageously disclosing information that would otherwise remain hidden, often at great personal risk, noting that in Nigeria, they continue to operate in a climate of fear, retaliation, and legal uncertainty, which deters many others from coming forward with information about wrongdoing.
Ms Ayomide Eweje, a Programme Officer at MRA, said in the statement: “We note that the current whistleblower protection framework in Nigeria remains weak, fragmented, and largely ineffective. The Federal Government continues to threaten whistleblowers with prosecution despite the whistleblower protection provisions in Section 27(2) of the Freedom of Information Act. Besides, the Whistleblower Policy adopted by the Government in 2016 was not designed to provide protection for persons who risk everything to expose corruption, misconduct, human rights violations, threat to public safety, or other wrongdoing, but is merely aimed at assisting the...
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