Generalizations Against Nigerian Muslims,
Nigerians And Nigeria
By
Paul I. Adujie
lawcareer@gmail.com
Amateurish criminal action by a Nigerian citizen, against Northwest or
Delta flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit, has unleashed unwarranted and
unbridled criticism against Nigerian Muslims, Nigerian Security Agencies
and Nigeria the country.
This, even though Nigerian Muslims, Nigerian Security Agencies and Nigeria
have all denounced the suspect and his botched criminal enterprise.
These unwarranted attacks, maligning and denigrations of Nigeria, have
occurred despite the facts. The facts are that the father of the Nigerian
citizen in question, acted forthrightly, as he took actions, he clearly
and specifically notified the United States of America of his worry,
regarding his son’s radicalization or extremism. A father acted against
his son, that is profound and heroic! How is it possible for some, to
still generalize about Nigerian Muslims and Nigeria, in the face such
division between good and evil even at a nuclear family level?
Some in the western media are hastily and lazily describing Nigeria as a
sort of fertile breeding ground or recruitment forum for Al Qaeda or
Taliban. And this is quite untrue, just as it is a quantum leap in silly
speculations. After all, there are homegrown terrorists here, in the
United States and this should not lead anyone to label all Americans, just
as, there should be no generalizations against Nigerian Muslims, Nigerians
and Nigeria, just because of the acts of one lone wolf Nigerian without
known cohorts or co-conspirators, co-actors, accomplices and collaborators
anywhere in Nigeria or with any other Nigerian anywhere in the world.
It should be clear to the world that a mistake was made. A father reported
a son, and American law enforcement and security agencies thereafter
accomplished nothing much after the complaint by the suspect’s father.
The fact is that, someone dropped the ball in neglecting to put on a
no-fly list or at minimum, put him under some extra scrutiny if he
indicated interests in flying, and particularly so, when is destination is
the United States.
To be forewarned is to be forearmed. The United States was put on notice
for a long time, as to the possibility of Umar Farouk Abdul Muttallab’s
criminal act which occurred on Christmas Day 2009. The suspect’s visa to
the United States, could and should have been revoked. The US Embassy in
Nigeria is well known and is on record for denying visas or revoking and
or canceling visas because it received an anonymous telephone call against
a visa recipient, visa applicant. The US Embassy in Nigeria regularly
denies visas to Nigerians over flimsy reasons or no reason at all, and in
this instance, there was abundance of reasons to have revoked or cancelled
the suspect’s visa or put his travel plans under heightened scrutiny and
red alert.
The suspect’s father is prominent and high profile Nigerian citizen. He
was a leader of a major bank in Nigeria. He volunteered information
against his own son. And despite this advance warning by a Nigerian
father, a hero and a patriot, in all of these, those whose duties it was
to act, failed to act and instead of accepting their lapses, they are
conveniently blaming everyone and everything else, but themselves. It is
in comparison to a situation in which the president of a major bank in
America, Citibank or Chase Bank, reports his son to law enforcements,
after careful observation and consideration and the law enforcement
agencies neglected to take action and thereafter, seeking scapegoats.
There are three critical issues to examine in this incident which could
have been catastrophic in outcome, had he been successful. The attempt by
Umar Farouk Abdul Muttallab to engage in criminal acts against an aircraft
and its passengers could have been nipped in the bud, it was clearly
preventable.
First, it was preventable in view of the fact that there were advance
notice to the appropriate American law enforcement agencies, as to the
possibility of its occurrence. The suspect’s father took prescient and
profound steps to address the risks, even where, taking such action,
clearly meant a diminution of life and liberty for his son. It must be
stressed that this is not by any means an easy thing for any parent to do.
The elder Mutallab, must have agonized and gone through most excruciating
pains and nevertheless resolved to do the right thing and he did, he
reported his own flesh and blood as someone with criminal tendency or
inclination, while the suspect was still preparatory or the crime in an
inchoate phase.
Secondly, the Mutallab, the suspect, began his trip in Nigeria, and more
specifically, from Lagos Airport where there is a huge presence of
American security personnel stationed there in almost overbearing numbers
and yet this slipped through their fingers and every expert, pseudo
analyst and commentator has been blaming Nigerian security operative since
the Christmas Day incident. It is common knowledge worldwide, that
American Customs, Immigrations and Drugs or Narcotics Enforcement Agents
now play pervasive permeating roles in airports around the world these
days, particularly, since September 11, 2001. Agents of US law
enforcements dominate airport screenings in many countries, including
Nigeria. How then, did this suspect beat all of them in Lagos and
Amsterdam? My personal experience in Canada and Bahamas is that flights
bound for America from these countries are literarily taken over by the
American Enforcement Agents.
In this incident therefore, it is one of two things, it is either that the
suspect bomber was so clever in his subterfuges, so much so, that no
precautions by the Nigerians and their American counterparts at the Lagos
Airport could detect his murderous shenanigans or that, he was hiding in
plain sight and the Americans, the Dutch and the Nigerian security system
failed the world in not detecting him. It cannot be that the Americans and
the Dutch performed excellently, but the Nigerians failed in some sorts of
selective way hence the failure to detect the bomber in Lagos or at some
other point during his flight.
The suspect embarked on his flight initially in Lagos with the Dutch
airline, KLM flight 588 on a Boeing 777, 11:00 PM, Nigerian time, on
Christmas eve, a first screening in Lagos ostensibly undertaken by a
combined team of American and Nigerian security operatives. Thereafter,
more screening were undertaken at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam for
transit passengers including the suspect Mutallab, in their second and
final leg of flights Northwest-Delta flight 253 on Airbus A330 departure
at 8:54AM from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan. I have been a transit
passenger through Amsterdam and other airports in Europe and around the
world, and transit passengers received secondary or additional checks
before merging with continuing or final leg of journeys. And as a matter
of fact, checks in Amsterdam have revealed that Mutallab the suspect
changed planes from KLM to Northwest-Delta with other passengers in
Amsterdam. And that he and others, were required to be checked or screened
before boarding the Detroit portion of their flight through
Northwest-Delta.
It will be recalled that a similar murderous attempt by Richard C. Reid
also known as the shoe-bomber, he too had embarked upon a similar
transatlantic flight in 2001 with plans to bomber a jetliner bound for the
US out of the skies. Reid like Mutallab the suspect, was thwarted as well
and I do not recall anyone blaming Britain and or labeling all Muslims in
Britain and for that matter, blaming all Britons, because of the dastardly
attempt by Reid. This makes me want to ask, what exactly is different now?
Reid fooled security operatives in Europe and got into the flight board
for the United States. Tackling crimes, international crimes, must become
collaborative and more multilateral in planning and implementation.
Instead of blaming Nigerians, Nigerian Muslims and Nigeria, the suspect’s
father should be held up as a hero. He did his part, he supplied his son’s
name to law enforcement and intelligence community, but for their reason,
chose to treat the report as trivial or treat the complaint with levity
and disregard, because according to their judgment, the son of whom the
biological father complained, did not have derogatory information against
him on file. What is more derogatory than a father calling his son a
religious extremist?
This incident happily resulted in no loss of lives. However, it does
exemplifies the need for shared intelligence and more elaborate
communication between American National Security Agencies and their
Nigerian counterparts as equal partners in the global fight against crimes
and those who perpetuate crimes. Poor communication and inadequacy in
information sharing between agencies of the American security apparatuses
led to the lapses culminating in this near tragic incident in Detroit
airspace.
It is now public knowledge that the suspect has been traveling. The
suspect should have been monitored in all his travels to London, Dubai,
Yemen before he ever embarked on the fateful journey to Detroit from Lagos
via Schiphol. After Mutallab the elder reported his son, Mutallab the
suspect should have been flagged as a person of interest and it would not
have been too much to subject all his travels to extra scrutiny. There was
no room for error or the sort of lapses which enabled him to travel
widely, evade detection, despite his father’s generous information against
him.
There should have been a universal precaution after the report by his
father. This is more so, especially in view of the plots of violence and
spates of violence which has not ebbed since September 11, 2001. Even by
the admission of Mr. Edmund S. Hawley, formerly of Transportation Security
Administration and others in Homeland Security claim to know that Al Qaeda
and other extremist or militants group have since September 11, 2001 and
they are going to keep trying, and so, vigilance is the operative word or
key word here, and yet, this is precisely the opposite of what was done
when the elder Mutallab reported his son’s bent for extremism and
militancy. There was a neglect of vigilance.
Worldwide vigilance is demanded by all, in the security services
everywhere. I could have been on that plane. We should all be concerned as
to where penetration might be next and this is not a Nigerian problem or
challenge. Mistakes were made everywhere in this particular case of
Mutallab and the mistakes were made on both sides of the Atlantic. Blaming
Nigeria is quite unreasonable in view of all the circumstances and the
known facts.
The world must reject the notion that it is okay to blame Nigeria in a
matter like this, where there was a name and an identified individual who,
despite advance notice and warning, slipped through multiple layers of
security, defying the Americans, the Dutch and the Nigerians, all.
Unfortunately however, since the incident, all manner experts, analyst and
commentators have had most disparaging things to say about Nigerian
Muslims, Nigerians and Nigeria. We have heard how porous and ill-equipped
Nigerian Airports are. We have heard and seen the so-called Osama Bin
Ladin perception index which has determined that Osama is considered as if
some sort of hero in my Nigeria according to PEW “Research” which has
claimed that Osama is more popular in Nigeria than in Pakistan and
Afghanistan together, with 54% popularity among Nigerian Muslims.
Whereas, the truth of the matter is that there are approximately 50
million Muslims in Nigeria, they are not admirers of Osama bin Ladin and
they are not all like the suspect , whose father, it must be restated, is
a Muslim himself, who would report his son to the Nigerian and American
authorities, clearly because his did not share his son’s worldview. This
criminal act is purely an isolated incident without Al Qaeda or Taliban
connections as some have strenuously sought to fathom from ashes and
dusts. Nigeria is not a hub for any extremism. Nigeria is not a
recruitment ground for any mass murderers. Nigerians and Nigeria reject
this untoward and unsavory label and any attempts to smear us and
generalize about Nigerians and Nigeria. Nigerians reject generalizations
and these rush to judgment about Nigeria, because of a crime committed by
one Nigerian citizen alone.
However, this has not stopped those intellectually lazy journalists,
experts, analyst, so-called political leaders and sundry careless
commentators from generalizing about Nigerians, Nigerian Muslims in
particular and Nigeria as a nation. Too many of these person clearly do
not know where Nigeria is on the world map. Nor do they care to know
Nigerians and Nigeria.
I have rolled my eyes each time they pronounced Lagos which is properly
pronounced LayGUS as LA-GUS or LAH GOSH! Just the same way these persons
have lazily and ignorantly pronounced Iraq as EYE-RACK, instead of Iraq
which is properly pronounced as EERAK. The ignorance and intellectual
laziness is so palpable. It makes me want to ask, how much effort could it
really take to say Lagos correctly? There are several Nigeria diplomatic
missions in the United States, notably in Washington D.C. New York,
Atlanta and Houston etc and one phone call could have done it, and
besides, there are thousands of Nigerians in America, ignored and
sidelined in all of these commentaries and opinions about an incident
arising from the behavior of a Nigerian citizen. Western journalists
should at least learn to say LayGus and not LAH-GOSH !
When all is said and done, the truth is that millions of Nigerians,
Christians, Muslims and Atheists have since Christmas Day incident,
condemned and denounced the attempt by Umar Farouk Abdul Muttallab, at
mass murders of passengers in an American airline. Countless Nigerian
individuals and groups, in Nigeria, in America and elsewhere in the
Diaspora have roundly condemned the suspect for engaging in what could
have been a major tragedy with catastrophic proportions.
It is such terrible shame that some would seek to demean Nigerian Muslims,
other Nigerians and Nigeria as a nation, when in fact criminals and their
crimes are not peculiar to any nation, especially in the face of homegrown
religious extremists right here in America itself! Richard Reid is not a
Nigerian.
The murderer who assassinated former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
is not a Nigerian. Rabbi Kahane is not a Nigerian, Major Hassan is not a
Nigerian. Timothy Micveigh was not a Nigerian. John Walker Lindh the
Taliban is not a Nigerian. Ted Kaczynski the Unabomber is not a Nigerian.
The woman who attacked the Pope on Christmas eve is not a Nigerian.
Christian extremists militants who the name of God and in the name of
being anti abortion shoot, to kill, shoot to maim and shoot to murder
medical doctors in America, are extremist and dangerous across the world
and across all religions. Religious extremism is global and it is an
affliction endured by all. Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab is accused of a
crime and he should be judged accordingly to the fullest extent of the
laws and based on the evidence.
Crimes and criminals demean us all, with their negative impacts and in
their equally negative consequences or outcomes. Crimes and criminals are
like religious extremism-militancy, they are like virtues and vices which
are part of human frailties and foibles, warts and all and are universal.
Not peculiarly Nigerian.
It is therefore a shame and disgrace on the part of those who are
exploiting the Northwest/Delta flight 253 incident to disparage Nigerian
Muslims, Nigerian Security Services and Nigeria as a country!
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