Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the National Population Commission (NPC) to give spending details on the postponed 2023 Population Census to an Abuja-based lawyer, Opatola Victor, within seven days.
Justice Ekwo delivered the decision while giving judgement in a lawsuit filed against the Population Commission.
The judgement ruled that the NPC’s reluctance to give the information or records of spending on the cancelled census, as requested by the lawyer on March 30, 2023, was erroneous, illegal, and unconstitutional.
While invoking Section 4 of the Freedom of Information Act, Justice Ekwo ruled that the commission’s refusal to provide the plaintiff with information on the companies that provided due diligence reports on the technology to be deployed for the ill-fated census was a gross violation of the plaintiff’s right under Section 4 of the FOI Act.
However, the court refused to approve the plaintiff’s request for N500,000 in the lawsuit.
In the decision, the judge issued a mandamus order compelling the NPC, its servants, agents privies, and officials to provide the lawyer with comprehensive and detailed information about the Quality Test Assurance Report on the devices and technology to be used for the postponed 2023 population census.
Justice Ekwo dismissed the defendant’s allegation that bureaucracy and the absence of its executive chairman at the time were to blame for the reluctance to make the required records available to the plaintiff, calling the assertion implausible.
The judge also invalidated the NPC’s allegation that some of the requested material was classified, which motivated the refusal to make the records available to the plaintiff, stating that according to the definition of classified information, there was nothing secret about the population census.
Justice Ekwo further stated that the commission’s claim that the record requested by the plaintiff was already in the public domain was untenable because the plaintiff’s request was on record with the NPC rather than in the public domain.
The lawyer had petitioned the court for an order that the population commission’s reluctance to make the record of spending on the failed population census, among other things, available to him was a violation of his rights under Section 4 of the FOI Act 2012.
He has petitioned the court for a mandamus order ordering the population commission to provide him with the sought data of the cancelled 2023 population census in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act.