Nigeria has passed theWhistleblowers Protection bill, also known asAn Act to Protect Persons Making Disclosures for the Public Interest and Others from Reprisals, to Provide for the Matters Disclosed to be Properly Investigated and Dealt with and for other Purposes Related Therewith.
Senate PresidentBukola Saraki made this known on his official twitter account, attaching a brief summary of the contents of the law to the post.
The enacted document is aimed at encouraging and facilitating the disclosure of misconduct of individuals, public servants and organizations (both private and public), setting out the range of persons who can become whistleblowers, the procedure for their submission of information as well as protections for whistleblowers.
If, contrary to the law, a whistleblower is subjected to harassment, unlawful dismissal, retrenchment, suspension, displacement against his or her will, assault or intimidation, the whistleblower has the right to file a claim.
The law also establishes sanctions for providing false information: a whistleblower can face up to 5 years in prison or a fine of up to 10 million Nigerian naira (about 1.7 million rubles) for false information.
Earlier in December 2016, the Federal Government of Nigeria adopted a whistleblowing program aimed at enhancing public participation in the timely detection of financial and corruption crimes. The program provided an opportunity for citizens to report observed financial irregularities, malpractices of public money and property, financial fraud, fraud or embezzlement against public ini
The main innovation of the program, which caused a controversial public response, was the possibility for whistleblowers to receive a reward if the information they provided led to the recovery of stolen or concealed public money or property, which could range from 2.5% to 5% of the total amount of assets recovered, with no cap on the amount of payments to whistleblowers.
The reaction to the adoption of the program at the time was a number of criticisms on social networks from civil society representatives, who called the proposed amounts of remuneration too high, in view of which some public figures compared the government's initiative to a pyramid scheme. 2015 presidential candidateRemi Sonaiya expressed the opinion that the financial side should not be the only motivation for citizens to report observed facts of wrongdoing, as well as the fact that whistleblowers about corruption ,
However, just two months after the program was launched, Nigeria's Minister of Information and Culture announced that $151 million (N9 billion) had been recovered through the program and stolen assets worth 81 billion Nigerian naira (N13.6 billion) had been recovered.
With the enactment of the Act, whistleblower remuneration provisions have been enshrined in law and whistleblowers may now be rewarded up to 5% of the recovered funds, property or other criminally derived assets if the information provided helped to locate and recover the funds, property or other assets.
The Whistleblower Protection Bill has been promoted by the National Assembly since 2008, but has remained unenacted as a federal law all this time. This year, as part of the improvement of anti-corruption legislation in Nigeria, the Witness Protection Act (Witness protection bill) and the internationalMutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Bill, while a bill for the establishment of specialized anti-corruption courts is currently before the Constitutional Amendment Committee (for similar legal institutions in other countries, see here and here).