By Samuel Malik

Nigeria’s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, has said that citizens’ access to information and data is a right rather than a privilege, adding that any attempt to deny such it, especially from government, would only threaten good governance.

The Vice President, who is at the Third International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, made the declaration on Wednesday at a forum put together by the Global Initiative for Fiscal Transparency on the importance of data in monitoring financial assistance for development.

He added that it is governments’ responsibility to ensure that citizens enjoy this right and sanctions meted out when it is abused.

According to a statement issued by the Vice President’s media office, Osinbajo spoke alongside former Prime Minister of New Zealand and current Uniten Nations Development Programme, UNDP, administrator, Helen Clark.

Others included government officials from Belgium and Bangladesh.

“The Vice President noted that such a culture of openness is a basic prerequisite for governments to achieve transparency and accountability in governance,” the statement read.

According to Osinbajo, Nigeria is determined to make sure that citizens are not denied access to information, especially as it affects governance. He noted that the National Extractive Industries and Transparency Initiative (NEITI) project and the Freedom of Information Act played vital roles in the unravelling of hitherto unknown activities in the petroleum sector and government activities.

While applauding the success recorded so far, Osinbajo said more needs to be done in the area of “quality of information and data available” to Nigerians.