eccentricyoruba shared this wonderful article that talks about Wikileaks, Freedom of Speech, Nigeria and Shell. This is a MUST read, people.

Julian Assange in Nigeria.

[...]The theory goes something like this: freedom of speech no longer has political traction in the west, in contrast to other parts of the world. It doesn’t really matter what is said in America in the press or elsewhere; it has little consequence for a system that is buried from view, circulating via diplomatic cables and a (mostly) secure corporate communications infrastructure. In contrast, freedom of speech remains a matter of life and death for hundreds of millions of other people, where the communications infrastructure is less sophisticated and inconvenient truths are harder to hide.

The trick is to realise that the two versions of freedom of speech are intimately related: what cannot be said in one part of the world is often conditioned by the interests at work in another. [...]

The lesson for those looking in at Wikileaks from a Nigeria perspective is clear. Those that dismiss Nigeria as the home of 419 and the submarine vent of originary corruption with a tired flick of the hand fail to see the enduring handiwork of the transational corporation, attacking a fragile state like an opportunistic virus against a weakened immune system. The dismissive ones have yet to listen to Fela and allow his words to make sense in their heads. As it was in the 1960s and 1970s, so it is today, it seems.