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People like to say information is power.
I think there is nothing powerful about information if it’s just a folder full of papers, sitting in a filing cabinet.
Information becomes powerful only when someone decides when the rest of us get to know it.
That is why information is perhaps the most underrated political weapon ever invented.
Not because it changes the truth, but because it changes the timing of the truth.
Imagine your spouse discovers in January that you've been secretly charging your credit cards, booking a hotel room on the weekends when you were supposed to be working extra hours at the office.
Instead of telling you immediately, she waits until the morning of your family gathering in July.
The credit card statements didn't suddenly appear that morning. The facts didn't change. Only the timing did.
And somehow, the explosion feels much bigger.
That is the beauty of timing. The information isn't merely released - it is deployed.
Politicians understand this better than anyone else.
Budgets are timed.
Announcements are timed.
Good news is timed.
Bad news is timed.
Investigations are timed.
Even apologies are timed.
Because information released today creates a completely different political reality from the exact same information released, say, three years ago.
That is why I have never been interested only in what the government tells us. I'm equally interested in when they suddenly remember we deserve to know.
If an investigation was completed years ago, why tell us today?
If the documents have been sitting on someone's table, why share it now?
If transparency is a principle, shouldn't it have an expiry date measured in days rather than election calendars?
Of course, governments will always have perfectly reasonable explanations.
Preventing panic.
Protecting the public.
Avoiding mass reactions.
The stars weren't aligned.
Mercury was in retrograde.
Who knows?
Perhaps everything really does take exactly the amount of time required for campaign banners to start appearing.
Maybe that's just a remarkable coincidence.
Or maybe information behaves like fireworks. Nobody lights them at two in the afternoon. You wait until the sky is dark enough for maximum effect.
Which is why, whenever a government proudly declares that it is being transparent, I find myself asking a different question: Transparent since when?
Because delayed transparency is an interesting concept. It suggests that the public has a right to know - just not immediately. Only when knowing becomes useful. Perhaps that is the first lesson every aspiring politician should learn.
Information is not ammunition because it exists. It becomes ammunition because someone decides when to pull the trigger.
So the next time another long-forgotten report suddenly emerges from a government drawer just as voters begin paying attention, don't rush to read only the contents - spend a moment admiring the calendar.
Sometimes, the date tells a more interesting story than the document itself.
And perhaps ask yourself one final question: If you knew someone had done something wrong, but chose to keep that information from the public for years, then who deserves our judgment – is it only the person who committed the wrongdoing?
Or also the person who knew about it, kept it locked away, and decided the public should only find out when the timing was convenient?
Fa Abdul (fa.abdul.penang@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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