Nigeria Content Online

All those on the receiving end of our publication of WikiLeaks documents –
mortified, embarrassed, angry, frustrated – can take comfort that they were not
alone in having their private conversations with US diplomats subjected to the
blinding light of the noonday sun.

I feel your pain. I am a victim too, as we publish in detail today in this
newspaper and on 234NEXT.com.

We at NEXT have set the chattering classes aflutter in the past couple of
weeks, with our comprehensive revelations regarding behind-the-scenes events
and conversations of the most powerful people in the land, as told to US
diplomats over the course of the past few years.

These gems, some of them eye-popping revelatory, some merely embarrassing
and others just titillating, have added up to give the public an unusually
intimate access to the thoughts and actions of the members of our benighted
elite.

We had a state governor, Adams Oshiomhole tattling to US diplomats about the
then vice president voting four times in a single election in 2007. We had
Speaker Dimeji Bankole asserting that he had proof that our Supreme Court
justices sold their decisions to the highest bidder. We had cabinet secretary
Yayale Ahmed telling the Americans that then President Umaru Yar’Adua, skipping
the country to attend to terminal health issues, handed over the presidency to
him instead of to Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, thus unwittingly revealing
the crude violation of the succession provisions in our constitution.

Government officials also were busy paying ransom to kidnappers – in one
case ₦20 million to get US and British hostages released – all the while
telling the public the opposite. We had former Delta governor James Ibori
offering to in effect set aside stolen money for charitable work, in exchange
for saving his hide. Patricia Etteh, the former hairdresser installed in 2007
by Olusegun Obasanjo as our House Speaker, fourth in line to the presidency,
was named by the Americans as being Obasanjo’s “romantic interest.”
Of course, when our reporters contacted her, Ms. Etteh defiantly pronounced
that “I am free to romance anybody.” So now we know.

One of my favourites was the diplomatic cable that detailed how Ojo
Maduekwe, then the foreign minister, attempted to trick US ambassador Robin
Sanders into a lunch meeting with the EFCC chairman, Farida Waziri. Ms. Sanders
insisted that Ms. Waziri be walked out before she’d agree to dine with the
hapless foreign minister, who promptly complied, assigning the unpleasant task
to his wife and then sheepishly telling the US ambassador, in effect, that he could
be expected to behave in such an undignified manner because he was, after all,
“a rascal.”

We also have had a parade of boastful politicians, apologetic activists,
self-aggrandizing businessmen, and incompetent policemen. We have no intention
of publishing every possible story individually, but as a public service we are
shortly to release the entire transcript in all its glory for the bedtime
reading benefit of the public.

All those offended or embarrassed or angry, or all of the above, would be
pleased to know that I also feel acutely embarrassed that I have shown up in
the WikiLeaks documents concerning South Africa. Those documents are not yet
available to the public, but I have decided to publish the part pertaining to
me so as to demonstrate to all that there was nothing personal at all about our
decision to bring the public in on these secret conversations of the people who
rule over them.

On November 16, 2007, I had lunch in Johannesburg with a political officer
from the US embassy in Pretoria. He wanted to know what I thought the likely
outcome of the bitter political struggle within the ruling African National
Congress, pitting President Thabo Mbeki against his erstwhile friend and
deputy, Jacob Zuma.

It was not unusual that my views should be sought. I occasionally provided
commentary on current affairs in South Africa’s leading newspapers and on TV.
And it was no secret that I maintained close friendships with important members
of the country’s political and business elite, particularly those at that time
close to Mr. Mbeki.

After a source made available a few weeks ago the Wiki cable in which my
lunch conversation was reported back to Washington by the US diplomat, I was
struck by two things:

1. I was 100 per cent wrong in flatly predicting that Mr. Mbeki would easily
defeat Mr. Zuma. In fact, Mr. Mbeki was soundly thrashed and subsequently
hounded out of the presidency, paving the way for Mr. Zuma. So much for the
well-informed, well-connected analyst.

2. The US diplomat faithfully reported the substance of our conversation,
and with such a high degree of accuracy that I would have been delighted to
hire him as a reporter for this newspaper.

I must confess here that my initial reaction was deep embarrassment at how
wrong I was. But then I realized that this was in fact not such a bad or
abnormal thing, that most of us make judgments based on information then
available to us, colored often by our prejudices and our social networks, and
our wishes and hopes and fears. It occurred to me that it might be useful to
subject myself to the same scrutiny that the characters in our WikiLeaks
revelations have experienced.

We have learned since the series became public that we have angered the
president, made an enemy of the Speaker, failed to recommend ourselves highly
to our most senior justices, ensured that Farida Waziri is not a fan, and of
course Mr. Maduekwe, who used to call me his “in-law” (the term being
very broadly and extravagantly defined,) probably will never speak to me again
as long as he lives.

To all of them and more, I know how you feel. It’s not personal, as you can
see from the complete transcript of the cable reporting my conversation with
the US political officer that we have now posted on 234NEXT.com. It is amazing
that even a journalist, whose stock in trade it is to reveal the well-hidden,
never assumed that a private conversation would become public knowledge.

Good thing the guy paid for lunch.

WIKILEAKS CABLES: Olojede comments on South Africa’s politics