The world, nay Nigerians got a rude re-awakening when the news of the failed attempt to bomb the Delta flight over Detroit filtered through. I remember sitting bolt upright from my bed on that Christmas day. I was savoring a quite Christmas somewhere in Delaware flickering through just the comedy channels and skipping the hard news channels. It was Christmas and I did not want to be bothered. The world can go to hell for all I care. But I was mistaken. The scream from my wife downstairs that I should switch to CNN immediately rattled me. She was not the CNN type.
She was more the Tyra Banks, Oprah and Discovery health type. I knew immediately it had to be big news. Sure it was. A Nigerian youth had just failed in an attempt to blow up a Delta flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. 23 year-old Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab, who boarded the KLM flight from Lagos Nigeria, has just been arrested after his suicidal attempt to blow up the Delta plane with over 200 passengers failed and resulted in fire gutting his thighs and the seat area where he sat. Thanks to the sharp reflexes of some of the passengers, mother luck and above all God's intervention what I had thought was a beautiful white Christmas would have turned out to be a black Christmas and perhaps one of the worst Christmas days ever recorded.
But that was not to be. I spent the entire day glued to the TV. I switched from one channel to another. Grabbed my laptop to monitor developments around the story. I wanted to gulp in as much information as possible. At first, I prayed there was a mistake somewhere and the said chap was not a Nigerian.Infact, I tried to find an explanation for the incident by trying to justify the fire as arising from the attempt of a cigarette addict or knuckle head attempting to have a quick smoke in flight.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
However, five hours after the news broke and more information became available, reality dawned on me. With that reality came sadness and an apprehension never experienced before for Nigerians and Nigeria. I was in the USA, working at the Voice of America when September 11, 2001 happened. My office was less than 5 miles away from Pentagon, so it came close home. I covered the aftermath then and continuously for almost 8 years reported on the US led war on terror. From Pakistan, to Iraq, to Afghanistan the terrorists roamed. On the streets of London and other European capitals they planned, plotted and struck. The USA never rested. It worked with other countries to curtail and destroy the terrorists. It became an engaging war and Nigeria was not left out in supporting the USA and the international community in confronting terror.
Thousands of lives have been lost, billions of dollars spent and colossal lost of materials have attended the war on terror, which is why I am saddened by the emergence of one Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab who has joined the ranks of terrorists by allowing himself to be an agent of death. His terrorist connections and attempt to blow up the Delta flight are unpardonable and unacceptable. His act is at best a blow to 140 million Nigerians because he has put on us all a label that is not ours. A stain that will not wash away easily, if ever. Nigeria is now being looked upon as a terrorist nation. There is a strong tendency that Nigerians will now be criminalized and regarded as potential bombers. To say the least, this is very unfortunate. The Nigeria I know is not country of bombers or religious irredentists. Nigerians, millions of them are law abiding. Many of them have supported the war against terror in various ways and have condemned every act of terror. Therefore, to seek to profile Nigerians based on the act of one youngster cannot be justified in any way. A country almost evenly spread in number between Christians and Muslims cannot easily be labeled as a sponsor of terror or a nation of potential terrorists just for the sake of convenience. No, it does not fit. Not just yet. Care must be taken not to rush to such judgment. The international intelligence community must come up with more facts before it can rush to such judgment or begin to single Nigerians out for more rigorous checks at the airports and everywhere.
What should happen is that the law should take its course in trying Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab. Perhaps this will serve as a deterrent to other misguided youths. It is also an opportunity for the United States of America and its intelligence apparatus to work closely with the Nigerian security apparatus and of course Europe to plug the loopholes. From Ghana, Nigeria, Armsterdam and America there were too many missed clues or 'smoking gun" as the Americans would like to call it. Clearly, the failure of intelligence is writ large in the Mutallab case and when all the facts are on the table it will be evident that between America, Europe and perhaps Nigeria, members of the intelligence community slept at the switch.
For the Nigerian government, it is a rude awakening from her passive position in addressing tough, sensitive and urgent issues of State. In the past 20 years, Nigeria has witnessed a harvest of religious riots with over 30,000 thousand lives lost. Between 2006 and 2008 the country witnessed the rise of the self-styled "Taliban" youths in the remote northern parts of Nigeria that share borders with countries like Niger, Mali and not too far from Sudan and Tunisia. Then, came "Boko Haram" (western education is a sin) mid-last year during which much terror was unleashed on both Muslims and Christians who failed to follow the extreme creed of the purveyors of the new theology of Islamic radicalism. The deaths and destruction coupled with the swiftness of the terror unleashed was a signpost of the dangers ahead and the gradual slippage of Nigeria into the hands of religious extremists. As usual, the reaction of the Nigerian government was lame. The security agencies traded blames about who knew what and who killed who? The government knew several months through security reports that a band of religious bigots with extremists views where about town and did very little to curtail their activities. There was no sustained effort at containment. Both the government and the Nigerian security forces lacked the rigor and discipline to analyze and deal with the development. Until the Nigerian government demonstrates its decisiveness in dealing with individuals who simply want to kill others because of religious disagreements, it will be impossible to nip in the bud the spread of religious fanaticism and more difficult to prevent the emergence of the likes of Farouk Umar Mutallab. Failure to enforce the laws of the country in dealing with religious bigots will allow those with extreme religious views thrive, inevitably providing fertile grounds for recruiters from Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Somalia.
Undoubtedly, since the events of September 11, 2001, Nigeria has been on notice that a potential fanaticization of a small percentage of its populace was building up. A very small group, I must say with sympathy for the Osama Bin Laden style of vengeance against the West though exist, have failed to rally many good Muslims to their cause. That it took almost 8 years to get a Farouk Umar Mutallab to submit himself for a criminal and suicidal act is a testimony to the fact that the Osama Bin Laden theory of liberation theology has not gained ground in Nigeria.
However, if Nigeria held any pretences that the country and its people were immunned against acts of terror or no Nigerian can be brainwashed to become a suicide bomber, such thoughts must perish. The bulk now stops with the Nigerian government, a government presently on Sick Leave. The government must investigate the Nigerian end of the matter and put in the public space a detailed account of what happened so that the world will know the truth. But, it does not stop there, the Nigeria government must engage all diplomatic channels to ensure that the much awaited effort to criminalize Nigeria internationally is confronted and rejected. Farouk Mutallab unfortunately and perhaps unwittingly might have given those who dislike Nigerians the noose to hang us all. His action has called to question the innocence of the average Nigerian and the days ahead aren't gonna be pretty unless the government of Nigeria does what any right thinking government should do-make every concerted efforts to protect her reputation and citizens. Hours after the news broke with the identification of the Nigerian; the Nigerian government was too rattled to give a strong response. Almost two weeks after the failed terrorist act, the Nigerian government is yet to respond effectively to the threat that looms large of Nigeria being labeled a sponsor of terror. Unfortunately, at a time Nigeria needs to assert itself and engage the world constructively, her leaders stand idly by, clueless, saddled with corruption and bereft of ideas to move the nation forward. In the face of this colossal failure, the media and civil society must rise up again to defend the Nigerian and ultimately take our country back because we are not all terrorists.
-Sunday Dare-journalist and writer is the Publisher of News Digest International Magazine and founder of the news website www.newsbreaksnow.com
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });