The Federal Government is yet to make a formal complaint to the United States on the embarrassing US diplomatic cables on Nigeria, a news agency, the Empowered Newswire, has reported.
US diplomats have been reported as making efforts to provide explanations and apologies to some of the countries involved.
A whistle-blower website, WikiLeaks, had released some US diplomatic cables on Nigeria, one of which claimed that President Goodluck Jonathan had told a US team that he lacked political and administrative experience to be Nigeria’s leader.
Another cable had also alleged that some members of a cabal in the administration of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua recieved bribes from international oil companies operating in Nigeria.
Empowered Newswire, a US-based Nigerian news portal reported on Sunday that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Odein Ajumogobia (SAN), did not raise the claims in the cables during his discussions last week with the US Secretary of State, Mrs. Hillary Clinton.
The news agency said although the US Assistant Secretaries of State Mr. Philip J. Crowley and Ambassador Johnnie Carson, had been trying to douse the feared impact of the released cables on Nigeria and other African countries, no US top official had made any direct apology to the Federal Government on the leaks.
Crowley, who is the US Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, confirmed on Thursday that the WikiLeaks disclosures did not come up during the discussions between Ajumogobia and Clinton.
Turkey, one of the countries that had raised objections to the leaked cables, received what many see as an apology from the US.
There were reports that President Barack Obama and the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had a telephone conversion over the WikiLeaks disclosures.
However, Carson and Crowley, who spoke with different groups of journalists recently expressed the hope that the US-Nigeria relationship would survive the strains that the disclosures in the leaked cables might bring.
Crowley, after a news conference addressed by Clinton and Ajumogobia at the end of their meeting on Thursday, had said, ”We value the leadership that Nigeria plays in Western Africa and we hope that it would continue and we hope to continue strengthening our bilateral cooperation.
“We would not expect that WikiLeaks will upset the path and objectives of our relationship.”
However, Crowley pointed out that the US had been in touch with almost every country before and after the release of the cables.
He explained that the action was taken by Washington in order not ” to undermine either any bilateral relationship or any regional cooperation.”
”We don‘t know what is going to happen in future but we will be willing to answer any questions that may arise from the issue (leaked cables),” Crowley added.
He said the US was keenly ”building a very strong relationship with Nigeria; the US-Nigeria Bi-national commission is a reflection of that.
“We are working on our mutual interests. It is the mutual interest between the US and Nigeria that really governs our relationship. We understand that this documents have been released and we condemn the release.”
Ajumogobia had before his trip to the US described the publication as “a disaster for all diplomats.’’
He added, ”If you said something in confidence to someone, you don’t expect it to be on the front pages of newspapers. That’s why the world takes it seriously; some school of thought believe truth should be exposed regardless of the consequences.
“I do not share that view and I think most reasonable governments wont,’’ he said, adding that Julian Assange, the detained publisher of WikiLeaks, crossed the line by releasing highly classified documents.
“There are few people who disagree and I feel most people don’t expect their confidential discussions to be in the public domain.’’
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