Gave every citizen the right to request information from public institutions — 7-day response window, civil/criminal penalty for refusal.
The FOI Act made Nigeria the 4th African country to enact freedom-of-information legislation. Any citizen can apply for any record held by a public institution; the institution must respond within 7 working days. Failure to respond can be enforced via the Federal High Court. The Act has been the foundation of civic data work by SERAP, BudgIT, Premium Times and others — the underlying legal basis for the data on this very site.