Leak govt documents, go to jail – Nigerian govt warns civil servants

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, George Akume, has warned civil servants against leaking official documents capable of causing Nigeria harm.

Akume warned that such an act was an offence, stressing that the government had set up measures to contain the leakage of sensitive official information in MDAs through the issuance of service-wide circulars by the Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation in August 2021.

He spoke at a workshop organised by the Bureau for Public Service Reforms (BPSR) in collaboration with the Office of the Government of the Federation, OSGF, on Tuesday in Abuja.

Represented by Dr Nnamdi Mbaeri, Permanent Secretary in the Office of the SGF, Akume said unauthorized leakage of sensitive official documents constituted a felony.

Quoting Section 97 (2) of the Criminal Code Act of Nigeria, he said: “Any person who, being employed in the public service, without proper authority abstracts, or makes a copy of, any document the property of his employer is guilty of a misdemeanour and is liable to imprisonment for one year.

“This was reinforced by the issuance of another service-wide circular in February 2024 on the unauthorised circulation of official documents with information on social media.

“This was done to re-emphasise other extant regulations prohibiting unauthorised disclosure or leakage of official documents.

“There is the need to regulate the activities of the civil society organisations who use the Freedom of Information Act to harass, intimidate and siphon resources from public officers through the dissemination of fake and unfounded information.”

Source: Daily Post