By Hugo Odiogor
Faced with domino effects of leakage of official secrets and encrypted documents by whistle blowing cable sites, experts in financial and defence security data are to meet next week in Abuja to devise strategies to combat exposure of sensitive official documents that could have negative consequences on national policy formulation and activities.

With Openleak. Org, formed by defectors from WikiLeaks, going into operations, yesterday, there are concerns that the mutation of whistle blowing media will further promote exposure of sensitive information that will hurt individuals, institutions and government as workers would be induced financially to steal private and official secret documents to be sold for huge sums of money. “This could be potentially damaging to national security”, said a source.

Financial transactions
“There are transactions that are for defence purposes and there are financial transactions that are private which may not meet all the requirements of public debate and exposure but they are vital to the preservation of the state and the wellbeing of the country, stealing and making such documents public could have serious implications on national defence and financial transactions for any country”

Vanguard learnt that top officials of the national security and financial sectors are billed to meet in Abuja next week to look at the WikiLeak phenomenon and its implication to national security as leak of official documents could compromise physical security both of individuals and institutions.

But the Executive Director of Media Rights Agenda, Mr. Edeatan Ojo, said the more secretive the government would want to be, the more impetus it will give to the citizens to be more daring in their attempts to get information from alternative sources. According to him, “this is why site like Sahara reporters is very popular”. Mr. Ojo said the attempt to frustrate the passage of the Freedom of Information Bill, FOIB, by the National Assembly is counter-productive because they provide safeguards for the areas that are of concern to security and intelligence chiefs.

Mr. Ojo said Julian Assange, the owner of WikiLeaks did not get his information through a legitimate source but rather used a whistle blowing approach because of secrecy that has characterised governance in the United Sates with regards to the country’s involvement in the wars in Middle East and Asia.

He said the FOIB will provide safeguards to protect private and security information sources. It will also exclude defence and diplomacy information from public domain. Ojo said that “when there is so much restriction and secrecy in governance, people tend to make use of whatever means at their disposal to get information.

Informed security sources said at the weekend that government officials have been jolted by the gradual realisation of the implications of what WikiLeaks phenomenon represents to national intelligence and security “and there will be the need to review government approach to managing information in this age of information technology”.

He said “there is a move to summon key government functionaries especially those in sensitive sectors to study the whistle blowing phase through leakage of classified document by people who are handling such information.”

He said government response may be to reinforce the colonial statue of the Official Secret Act that criminalises the release of classified information. He said the WikiLeak episode may strengthen the position of opponents of the freedom of information bill.

There are fears that members of the security community will become more inclined to trade sensitive information to adventurous media.

Which is why government has begun to remind public servants of the existence of the Official Secret Act, OSA, which makes it criminal to disclose classified information. People could be tried under the OSA and  the jail term could range between two to 14 years.

The Dean of Centre for Development Studies, Prof. Kayode Soremekun, said the WikiLeak phenomenon may have its negative side in infringing on personal privacy but it is a worthy effort in fighting corruption and strengthening the practice of democracy by enhancing the people’s right to know what their governments are doing.

He said although the approach of WikiLeaks may be wrong “but it will do our law makers a lot of good to learn WikiLeaks because FOIB will provide safeguards against breaches that can result from secrecy”. There are fears that more whistle blowing site would emerge and hackers would be more daring to go for encrypted information and secret documents of high profile business transactions in banks, oil sector, pharmaceuticals and environment related fields where multinational companies and high net worth individuals in return for huge financial rewards.

Prof. Soremekun said the danger facing everybody with this new development would where to draw the line between the right to privacy of the individual and the adherence to the democratic dictates of the peoples right to know.

The Don said “the good thing about Wikileak is that it will keep corrupt government in check because they will have it at the back of their mind that whatever they are doing is not hidden from the sun because one day the secret would be out in the open”.

He said “it is  in the character of man to be curious and inquisitive for which he can go the extra mile, to dig out things that are hitherto considered to be secret, this is why people take seriously information from grapevine, in Nigeria people have lots of regard for information  foreign media, diplomatic sources, opposition leaders and alternative sources outside government because of so much secrecy in public governance in Nigeria”.”.

Several key members of WikiLeaks have resigned to form a new organization called Openleaks, which begans operations yesterday with a mission to do what WikiLeaks is trying to do but without the drama that has attended the work of Wiki leaks. Open Leaks Managers said they will not make their site “open to the public but materials could be accessed by Non governmental Organisations, the media and academic institutions”.