March 7, 2016
The Executive Director of Society for Democratic Initiatives-Sierra Leone (SDI), Emmanuel Saffa Abdulai, was last Friday elected chairman of the Governing Council (GC) of the African Freedom of Information Center (AFIC) in Kampala, Uganda.
The voting took place during the Annual General Assembly of AFIC, which hosted 39 institutions working on Freedom of Information in the continent.
The SDI director was initially, with six others, elected to the GC, where he pulled the highest number of votes from delegates from across the continent. The GC then elected him unanimously as chair of the Pan African Network of freedom of information institutions.
In his inaugural statement, Mr. Abdulai thanked members for bestowing upon him trust to lead the continental institution that is focused on good governance through transparency and accountability.
“I believe there will be reciprocity of trusts and our side of the social contract pact is to perform our duties that will hoist AFIC to the highest level,” he said and thanked the outgoing president for setting the stage for “steady development” of the organisation.
“My first task is to review AFIC’s constitution to ensure conflicting term limits are harmonised and develop a comprehensive electoral guidelines for future elections,” pledged Mr. Abdulai.
He is serving a second term of three years in the GC of AFIC. He was Secretary General in the last executive of AFIC for the past three years, and campaigned and sustained progress made by the outgoing GC.
AFIC was established in 2006 in Lagos, Nigeria, with SDI being one of its founding members. The network works on coordinating regional advocacy and implementation of freedom of information in Africa. It has gained traction to working on Open Government Partnership, Open Contract and relating Freedom of Information to the fight against corruption.