Of Politics, Media Leaks, Public Interest and National security
This is Taye Currency singing a classic Yoruba song used especially during political horse-trading. I will attempt a translation:
“The petition (report or document) you wrote with sleepless nights against us to the authority got to us before it was delivered to the AUTHORITY”
The 2019 election is around the corner. Election periods typically provide a fertile ground for classified document leaks. So more “secret” documents will fly around as we saw during the 2014-15 election involving GEJ, NNPC and many others.
‘On Tuesday, 14 August, 2018 Samuel Ogundipe, a Journalist with Premium Times was arrested for publishing a leaked document. The person who leaked the document may never be found, identified or arrested if the journalist upholds his “do not disclose your source” tenet of Journalism.
Generally, it can be very difficult to identify leakers. In most cases, leaking a classified document involves a large number of people and the journalists just aggregate information from multiple sources and publish “in the public interest.”
To put the issue in perspective, a leak occurs when a government insider (an employee, former employee, or contractor) shares secret information about the government or private establishment with a journalist. In most cases, (in actual fact -all cases) the insider is not authorized to share the information, and wishes to stay anonymous.
Establishing what a “leak” is has been a contentious issue in the media and government circuit for decades. For people in government and security agencies, it may be defined as an unauthorised “person” giving information to a journalist
And in rare cases, where leakers are identified, their prosecution by the government or authorities may lead to more sensitive information getting to the public if the case gets to the law court, as exemplified in the case of WikiLeaks in the US and Panama papers.
It is important to also state that there’s no official standard to determine when it’s a crime for a journalist to publish leaked information. In any case, I am not aware any government in Nigeria has ever successfully prosecuted – I mean none has approached a court of competent jurisdiction (Tex-The-Law coached me well here Lol…) to prove such a case.
However, from my understanding as a trained communicator and reputation manager, a journalist can’t be punished for publishing information considered to have been “obtained illegally”, as long as the journalist didn’t do anything illegal. This is open to divergent views though.
Since it is established you can’t stop a leak except you populate government offices with only people considered to be “loyalists”. To avoid backlash, I think the government cannot afford to crack down on leaks with excessive high handedness, as leaking also allows the government officials to use the media to convey anonymous statements for its own advantage. Hence, it is a win-win situation.
We have seen government officials use leaks several times like during General Sani Abacha’s government when its officials used leaks against the alleged coup plotters such as Oladipo Diya and co. Also, under Olusegun Obasanjo government, we saw how the government officials leaked document on Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) to deal with Atiku Abubakar. Recently, we saw series of such leaks under GEJ with Sanusi’s case over Deziani/NNPC fund. Those who followed the 2014-15 elections will remember how APC and PMB used leaks to gain political advantage.
This goes to say that sitting government and people in opposition also work with journalists to leak supposedly classified information. Interestingly, the people in government or the government itself, the opposition and unions will not protect leakers (except for civil society organizations) if they are caught even when they are acting in the “public interest”.
What is Public Interest by the way?
There are divergent meanings of ‘public interest’. Leakers see it as information that brings accountability and transparency to government and exposes maladministration or corruption. Whereas, “governments” have over time assumed the role of the sole interpreters of the public interest. They have codes in all sorts of memos and gazettes that says public servants are be bound by rules of confidentiality and are not free to speak out.
Across the world, civic-minded people who encounter what they believe to be corrupt, activity they consider an illegal conduct inside government or injustice to their interest (because I can be a civil servant and be loyal to an opposition for various reasons) usually take it upon themselves to release classified and confidential information.
To some, leaking is an alternative to whistleblowing and carries fewer risks of reprisals because nobody is owning the space with his ‘chest’. You only see the journalist who decides to publish.
The question is “did Samuel Ogundipe of the Premium Times Journalist commit any offence?” No! However, the Ogundipe’s action i.e. publishing a document that bothers on national security could be argued that it is an offence.
In the United States of America, a journalist can be actually jailed if the government demands that he/she reveals the identity of his/her source and refuses. While many states have “shield laws” that prevent the government from forcing journalists to reveal their sources, there is no equivalent federal law. Vice President Mike Pence is on record as a Congressman to have co-sponsored a proposed federal shield law several times, but has remained stalled in Congress. Are there laws like this at all in Nigeria?
In in the end, journalists and leakers across all interests including government, security agencies, opposition and interest groups need to strike a balance between “public interest and National security”. This I believe is usually the hard line to draw.
