Death Of Innocence

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.
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.

This Decay Can Inflict Poetic Justice, Alhaji (Dr.) Mutallab

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.

Nigerians Fear Backlash Over Attempted US Bombing

Many Nigerians think his action harmed the image of their country; the government plans to fight any attempt to stigmatize its citizens in the incident.

The botched Christmas Day bomb attack on a U.S. airliner involving a suspect from Nigeria has prompted concerns for Nigerians traveling abroad. Vice President Goodluck Jonathan warned the incident could trigger more scrutiny and "harassment" of Nigerians. The Nigerian government says it will fight any attempt to stigmatize its citizens in the wake of the alleged attempt to blow up a U.S. passenger jet by a Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The suspect has said he was trained by al Qaida in Yemen. Many Nigerians think his action harmed the image of the West African nation. But the government says the alleged attack was an "isolated incident" and cannot be an excuse to discriminate against Nigerians living or traveling abroad. House of Representatives member Abika Dabiri, who chairs the House Committee on the Diaspora, says Nigerians living abroad are very worried. "We've heard many complaints and worries from Nigerians in the diaspora as to how they are being treated, all of a sudden because of this," Dabiri said. "So we are worried about that, but we want to stress that the act of this Nigerian, this alleged act of terrorism, it doesn't represent the face and conscience of Nigerians so it should not be an opportunity or a reason to treat Nigerians all over the world shabbily." Nigerians have often complained about being targeted at international airports for stricter screening," Ekhomu said. "In Lagos, security consultant Ona Ekhomu says even more stringent security measures await Nigerians at foreign airports. "To all Nigerians, when you are flying abroad please have a great attitude. Do not go there and do our normal Nigerian thing. We are brash, we are very self-assured, we know our rights and stuff … you will end up in jail." The West African nation is without a leader at the moment, as President Umaru Yar'Adua is still receiving medical treatment in Saudi Arabia for a heart condition. Image-conscious Nigeria also faces unrest in its oil-producing region as well as endemic corruption, a high crime rate, poor infrastructure and other problems.

Bomb suspect came from elite family, best schools

As a member of an uppercrust Nigerian family, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab received the best schooling, from the elite British International School in West Africa to the vaunted University College London.
But the education he wanted was of a different sort: Nigerian officials say his interest in extremist Islam prompted his father to warn U.S. authorities. As Abdulmutallab was being escorted in handcuffs off the Detroit-bound airliner he attempted to blow up on Christmas Day, he told U.S. officials that he had sought an extremist education at an Islamist hotbed in Yemen.
A portrait emerged Sunday of a serious young man who led a privileged life as the son of a prominent banker, but became estranged from his family as an adult. Devoutly religious, he was nicknamed "The Pope" for his saintly aura and gave few clues in his youth that he would turn radical, friends and family said.
"In all the time I taught him we never had cross words," said Michael Rimmer, a Briton who taught history at the British International School in Lome, Togo. "Somewhere along the line he must have met some sort of fanatics, and they must have turned his mind."
Abdulmutallab has been charged with trying to destroy a Northwest flight on Christmas Day with 278 passengers and 11 crew members on board. The detonator on his explosive apparently malfunctioned and he was subdued by other passengers.

Through an official, Abdulmutallab's father "expressed deep shock and regret over his son's actions."
His family home sits in the city of Funtua, in the heart of Nigeria's Islamic culture. Religion figured into the family's life: His father, Alhaji Umar Mutallab, who had a successful career in commercial banking, also joined the board of an Islamic bank — one that avoids the kind of interest payments banned by the Quran.
The large house, surrounded by a wall and a metal fence just off the main road running through the city, stood empty, a common occurrence for a jet-set family that sought an education abroad for Abdulmutallab. Family members told The Associated Press they could not comment but expected the family to issue a statement.

Obama orders air security review after jet bomb attempt

US President Barack Obama has ordered a review of air security measures after a Nigerian man allegedly tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic jet on Christmas Day.
Spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president wanted to know how a man carrying dangerous substance PETN had managed to board a flight in Amsterdam.
He said the system of watch-lists would also be examined after it emerged the man was listed and known to officials.
A US record for 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was created last month.
Mr Gibbs told ABC News that the review would examine, firstly, the system of watch-lists used by government agencies, which includes three lists which become progressively shorter as risk increases.
'Dangerous substance'
The lists include a watch-list, with some 550,000 names on it, a "selectee" list with 18,000 people within the higher-risk category, and a "no-fly" list with 4,000 names of people who are not permitted to board planes.

Mr Abdulmutallab was placed on the lowest-risk list by US authorities in November 2009, after his father alerted authorities about the behaviour of his son.
Mr Gibbs said the number of people on the watch-list was "a huge number".
"The president has asked that a review be undertaken to ensure that any information gets to where it needs to go, to the people making the decisions. The president wants to review some of these procedures and see if they need to be updated," he said.
On 24 December Mr Abdulmutallab travelled from Nigeria to Amsterdam and then on to Detroit with an explosive device attached to his body, US officials say.
Shortly before the flight was due to land in the US, he allegedly attempted to detonate the device beneath a blanket but he was overpowered by passengers and crew.
Mr Abdulmutallab, the son of a prominent Nigerian banker, has been charged by US authorities with trying to blow up the Northwest Airlines flight as it was coming in to land.
US airlines especially have tightened security after the attempt, increasing screenings and body searches and, in some cases, confining passengers to their seats without pillows or blankets for the last hour of their flight.

Andy Uba: Restating the nature of the evil

As we wait for the verdict, it is important to restate the nature of the challenge Andy Uba posses to a generation of Nigerian citizens yet unborn. Below is a piece first published on December 18, 2007.)
God comes in trinity. Evil comes in triplets. The triplets of Anambra evil are Chris Uba, Chuma Nzeribe and Andy Uba. Many are familiar with the two Ubas but Chuma Nzeribe, the most brutal of Anambra evils, operates under the radar. I met Chuma Nzeribe at the 2004 World Igbo Congress convention, in Newark , New Jersey . Before then, I had read a lot about his various exploits: How he led Chris Uba’s convoy that knocked Gov. Chris Ngige off the road. How he masterminded the kidnapping of Gov. Chris Ngige. How he worked as the commandant of the Uba gang of urchins who terrorized Anambra state. When I beheld Chuma Nzeribe, his stuffy bodyguard built, bloodshot eyes, arrogant and threatening posture, suited perfectly well with his records of alleged crimes and misdemeanors. During an Anambra Forum, when a participant asked Chris Uba, then the resident terrorist of the state, an uncomfortable question, it was Nzeribe who warned the participant that Uba gang would be waiting for him whenever he returned to Anambra State.