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From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Presidency, yesterday, warned that heavy penalty awaits any of its staff that divulges classified information to the public.
Permanent Secretary, State House, Tijjani Umar, stated this at the administration of Oath of Secrecy and Declaration of Secrecy to 42 staff of the State House, administered by Justice Hamza Muazu of the Federal Capital Territory High Court.
He said the presidency would not tolerate any act of truancy and breach of oath of secrecy by staff, stressing that leaking classified information without authorisation was a grievous offence.
“This exercise is the beginning of doing what is right in various offices. The rules must be enforced and any breach carries a consequence. From now on, you are under the radar, we are going to watch and follow you. What we have done today is to administer the oath of secrecy on staff of the State House, who handled classified documents. When we say classified documents, they are secret and other documents that ought not to be handled without due diligence. So, I think it is so important because we are alarmed by the fact that nowadays, due to deployment of staff and through retirement, we discovered that a number of our officers need to be placed under the radar.
“They will be aware that the jobs they are holding, and the kind of documents or information they are holding from day to day, Monday to Friday and beyond, those documents are so important and must be safeguarded. And the breach of such documents would take away from the delivery of service and that was the reason we decided we should do the needful by administering the oath of secrecy, and highlighting the import of letting them know what information they are managing, and then the consequences of the breach of such information.
“I think when you let people know, and then along the way, you find them wanting, the consequences are very clear. And so before we even went forward to do the administration of the oath, what we did was to do a sensitisation training for them, so that the Official Secret Act will be spelt out to them very clearly.”
The permanent secretary, who described the exercise as a huge success, further said: “You could see from the solemn way the exercise was conducted by the Justice Muazu, the staff are now much more aware and much more alert, going forward, about their responsibilities.
“And then to the likely outcome of what any breach might bring about, we have not had any breach. We don’t anticipate to have any breach. But then it is our duty to let them understand that if there is any, that also includes after they have left government service, that will be investigated. And then the appropriate punishment will be given.”
