The New York Times described him as “a prominent Nigerian banker and former government official”. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula boastfully called his son; their “Nigerian brother” who successfully outwitted airport security systems even though his determined efforts to wreck the havoc he was deployed for was marred by a ‘technical fault’.
Since Christmas Day when fate foiled 23-year old Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab’s attempt to bring down a jetliner over Detroit one has watched in dismay as his father, Alhaji (Dr.) Umaru AbdulMutallab and the rest of his family embarked on a subtle PR ploy to cast themselves as unfortunate victims of their son’s indiscretion. Some, particularly in the popular press seem to have bought into their ploy: In a side bar, The New York Times proclaimed: “Parents of Suspect Offer Help”. From his London base, one Eddie Iroh in comments made in Nigeria’s Next newspaper was quick to praise Mutallab, the father for alerting Nigerian authorities and the US Embassy in Nigeria that his son had gone AWOL.
My reading and assessment of Alhaji (Dr.) Mutallab’s alert is that he simply dialed 911 to for help that could bring his son back to him. The family statement confirmed as much: “We were hopeful that they would find and return him home”, it reads in part. The US Embassy cared less and rightly so, to use their system to help a man who pays neither tax nor tight to sustain it to look for his son and bring him home. That US authorities simply inserted the lad’s name into the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE, the extensive collection of data on more than 500,000 people, instead of the “far smaller no-fly list, which has only 4,000 names, or the so-called selectee list of 14,000 names of people who are subjected to more thorough searches at checkpoints” underscores the validity of my assessment even further. As for the Nigerian authorities, it’s premature at this point to even bother to infer why they wouldn’t bate an eyelid in response to Mutallab’s distress call. That fact will unfold clearly a little later in this piece.
Dr. Mutallab didn’t act out of character when he dialed 911 to help him locate and bring his son home. After all, he’s used to reaping big time and unduly from systems. If his antecedents in Nigeria where he’s all his life been involved in plunder constitute a reference, his sense of undue entitlement is exceptional. Although he belongs to the cadre of prominent Nigerians, former and present government officials, it probably escapes him that his role in the Nigerian project is central to the continuing decay in the society every way you look. That decay has come right home to roost in his very backyard this time around. When the decay hit the educational system there’s no reason to believe that he was bothered. After all, the International School in Togo is close by for him to ship his son off to. But it isn’t close enough to make it impossible for him and his family to exercise the requisite parental over sight for his proper upbringing. Even though Nigeria’s university system is wrecked because of neglect; the University of London is also there to receive him right after he completed his post-primary schooling. After all money plundered from the dysfunction in the Nigerian project is handy to pay his fees and keep him in a four-million dollar apartment on Oxford Street. The decay that the economy is in enables the Alhaji (Dr.) to continuously feather his economic nest isn’t about to thaw. He remains an ardent member of the cadre of people whose activities sustains a spawns the dysfunctional project that Nigeria is. With their families, members of the cadre still escape the ravages of that dysfunction in practical terms. The irony is that the decay that sustains his wealth and privileges is indeed capable of making it impossible for what exists in Nigeria in the name of government to respond except in a dysfunctional manner when he dialed 911.
I’m sure that Alhaji (Dr.) Mutallab has heard this several times before: In the real world, individuals become prominent by rendering genuine and selfless service to society. Those of them who go into government do so to serve and build, not to plunder. That’s exactly how functional society in North America and Western Europe where Alhaji (Dr.) Mutallab and his ilk flock to for vacation even during winter, came about and is sustained. That’s why their system respond so well even when for instance they dial 911. That’s why they don’t have to send their children for quality education abroad where it’s impossible to extend much-needed parental over sight to them. Children who receive adequate parental over sight often turn out well. If they go astray, as can be the case sometimes, the 911 system is there to respond well when parents activate it. That’s also why their wives, even them receive good medical attention at home. That’s also why they attain public sympathy when they experience misfortune. I could go on and on.
Alhaji (Dr.) Mutallab and his family are not victims of what came their way on Christmas Day. It’s justice, the poetic variety that they reaped, and there might be some more on the way.
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