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Given the scope of
the issues raised by this third set of WikiLeaks revealing the contents
of its diplomatic cables, the United States has handled the matter with
an admirable insouciance – although this commendation is necessarily
qualified by the unfortunate fact that it is shutting stable doors
after several horses have already bolted. But since the stable appears
to contain many more potential runaway horses, the United States can
hardly be blamed if it is writing such a huge book that anyone at whom
it might be thrown will be cowed into quashing any feelings of outrage
at government actions and policies and continue keeping secrets secret.

Constrained by
constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech, the U.S. used
government-to-government damage control, apologies to offended friends
and stony weathering of the storm with apparent foes, all the while
maintaining a disingenuous ‘Look, no hands!’ posture, leaving it to
citizens to call for the head of Julian Assange and block donations to
WikiLeaks, and to Swedish prosecutors to delve into private conduct and
come up with sexual assault charges behind which it is impossible not
to smell conspiracy. Frankly, if not, why not?

The anger does
slip through from time to time. But as Australian Foreign (and former
Prime) Minister, Kevin Rudd – perhaps stung into action on behalf of a
citizen to whose defence his government ought to have sprung as soon as
the rabid right in the U.S. started calling for Assange’s
assassination, by some less than complimentary remarks about him in the
cables – pointed out, the fault lies with the U.S. and its outraged or
disaffected citizen – possibly intelligence analyst Bradley Manning –
who took and then leaked the relevant material. And of course, the
system that allowed so much information to be gathered together in the
first place – a bonus of the post-9/11 push for joined-up government.

It goes without
saying – particularly when Manning has been held in solitary
confinement for seven months – that a lot of double standards have been
exposed, but there is not really anything remarkable in these
contradictions, obvious and glaring as they are to the whole world.
Instead, here in Nigeria, one can’t help wondering: if the WikiLeaks
source acted out of outrage at his government’s actions and policies,
where are our own outraged moles? Or ‘disgruntled elements’?

Remember the
Members of Parliament expenses scandal that consumed – and for a time,
defined – British political life from 2009 until that country’s general
election in May this year? Unlike Nigeria, Britain does have Freedom of
Information laws, and it was in response to a request under this
legislation that its parliament had to reveal details of MPs’ expenses.
To comply with the High Court ruling ordering the release, the
Stationary Office was censoring (or, to use the word of the moment –
‘redacting’) the list so that only the final amount agreed to be paid
would be revealed.

But in order to
earn money with which to buy functional equipment for use in
Afghanistan, soldiers on leave from the war there were having to
moonlight by doing guard duty at – among other places – the Stationary
Office. The MPs’ grasping insistence on claiming for every bar of
chocolate eaten on government time, and numerous little and large
luxuries was in such contrast to the government’s refusal to find money
to buy the best equipment for soldiers at war, that it stirred a level
of outrage which led a civilian colleague to download the entire lot,
grasping claims, comments and all, and hand them to a former SAS
officer, John Wicks, who sold them to the Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Beleaguered MPs
and members of the House of Lords hardly dared to complain. The
revelations caused such general fury that it was easy to accept that
the initial taking of the damning material was occasioned by outrage,
not monetary reward.

We’ve had a lot of
anger here at home too, mostly about our own legislators with the
spotlight temporarily removed from our profligate a-borrowing
executive. But where are our own outraged civil servants and
whistle-blowers? Even if our rulers are being protected by their own
inefficiency (searching as we are, for any government at all, let alone
the joined-up kind) if the Pentagon Papers had to be physically
photocopied and carried out of the Pentagon in the 1970s, where are our
own documents and details of projects – parliamentary and executive,
contract awards?

Surely the
nationwide black-out that is heralding President Goodluck Jonathan’s
promise of electricity for all (in, er, May 2011) isn’t preventing a
similar manual approach in 21st century Nigeria? Where is the outrage
within our own corridors of power?

Having refused to
sponsor or pass access to information laws at the federal level (kudos
to Lagos State for its efforts at state level), our rulers should not
try hiding behind the U.S. response to the WikiLeaks saga to justify
their own opacity and lack of transparency: their secrecy is mostly
about money and corruption, not about national security or
international relations. The American reaction certainly reveals their
belief that not all leaks are good. But not all leaks are bad either.
The declension of the appropriate verb goes something like: he betrays,
you leak, I whistle-blow.