The federal government has warned that unauthorized disclosure or leakage of official documents, capable of impacting the country negatively, is a punishable offense.

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, issued the warning on Tuesday in Abuja during a workshop hosted by the Office of the Government of the Federation (OSGF) and the Bureau for Public Service Reforms (BPSR).

Akume reminded the participants that the government had previously developed methods to contain the leakage of sensitive official information in ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) through the release of service-wide circulars in 2021.

“This was reinforced by the issuance of another service-wide circular in February 2024 on the unauthorized circulation of official documents with information on social media,” he said, through his representative, Nnamdi Mbaeri, the Permanent Secretary in the Office of the SGF.

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

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