The story of Umar Farouk Abdulmutalab had been a good four days old before it reached my ears and even then the details I got were sketchy and incomplete which effectively made my ears itch for more. Somehow in the middle of the Christmas revelry, I had been totally left behind in the trend of events. In the end I had the feeling of having lost out in the never ending chase to be the “first to know” for me it was a painful defeat, too difficult to accept. I could even taste a growing bitterness in my guts.
The scraps of news that initially got to me did not quite tell the story as vividly as it deserved but it was clear that at the Centre of it was a Nigerian man who had gotten America to stand still, even if momentarily. The man in question, Abdulmutalab and I were age mates and I just had to envy his new status of worldwide fame and recognition, so my animosity towards the story could only grow worse and it did.
I thereafter determined to contain my appetite and not show too much interest in what must be the juiciest story of year since Obama’s inauguration. A week after when at last I was content that I had shown enough outward disdain for the hottest story in town. I grabbed the remote control and switched channels to the, you guessed it, CNN. When it came to narrating bad news, no one could do it any better.
Farouk’s story still dominated most of the reports and I listened for several minutes after which three major details stood out:
1). A young black man named Farouk had travelled to America- the land of the free. He had previously even been to Britain and a number of other countries. This for me was a part fulfilment of the dream of every young Nigerian. I just had to envy this guy.
2). while in America he had dutifully paid for a plane ticket and he boarded a local flight from the airport in Detroit. This I believe was the wise thing to do for anyone who had the money and wanted to avoid the infamous holiday traffic which had been made worse by a very bad winter.
3). On that flight, Farouk had with him a small package containing potentially explosive materials. What did he need it for? My guess is, in the spirit of the yuletide he had probably meant to treat his co-passengers to a magnificent display of fireworks in mid-flight.Howplayful of him
It turned out all of the passengers didn’t like his prank. I think Farouk should have warned them a little earlier. And then didn’t Farouk realize that if the firework display went out of control the explosives could seriously hurt himself and several co-passengers, or worse spell doom for more than a few citizens on the ground below. And then come to think of it, could that be what Farouk actually meant to do? Spell doom for several American citizens? Well as I continued to listen, the news actually went on to say just that. It declared young Abdulmutalab a bad guy who had meant to blow up himself and the rest of the plane. He was subsequently pronounced a terrorist, and an extremist with suspected links to Al-Qaida. Once America had said this, the rest of the world promptly gathered to pour condemnation on Abdulmutalab’s action. Nigeria Farouk’s home nation which liked to copy and copy wrongly quickly joined in the condemnations, rushing out with a strongly worded official press statement denouncing Abdulmutalab and denying Nigeria’s involvement in his actions.
This was however too late our country could not with mere words erase the connection between Farouk and his motherland. It is clear to everyone now that our government officials should have first considered the matter deeply before gushing and when eventually they choose to break their silence they should have talked tough. Loud and tough. In anycase all of our placatory press statements did not stop America from considering Nigeria a security threat.
Information minister in her press statement should have said; yes Abdulmutalab is a terrorist, born of Nigerian parents who are also terrorists. The nation is proud of him and we have our reasons. Cryptic talk of that kind is what I wish she closed her address with, it was sure to generate unprecedented interest in Nigerian affairs from all around the world.
To my mind, denouncing Abdulmutalab like we did was like throwing away a golden moment in time. Never before had Nigeria attracted so much international attention as it did after Umar Farouk’s failed terror attempt. Not even our double gold in the Atlanta 1996 Olympics could get the whole world talking about us all at once. Typically Nigerian social commentators are quick to describe any news making event or persons with Nigerian connections however remote as “bringing glory to the country” so that anything from the inconsequential and sporadic flashes of brilliance by Nigerian born performers especially sport persons and artistes, to the genius of a sprinkling of professionals in the diaspora is lumped up as bringing glory to the country. However no one person had brought as much international attention or glory if you like as Mr. Abdulmutalab.
And who says we as a country would be shooting ourselves in the foot by hailing Abdulmutalab’s actions–ruining our prospects of attracting foreign investments, free spending tourists or international aid. On the contrary our new status as a country that supports terrorism would jump start the number of Oyinbos begging to visit Nigeria and here is how.
To begin, our airports will be flooded by the pressmen and crew of every major news station from around the world seeking for exclusive interviews or breaking news item. This shall closely be followed by along list of international and regional peace negotiators recognized and unknown, UN delegates and their blue beret officers, busy bodies, Oxfam reps, UNICEF, foreign affair analysts, diplomats and then more pressmen. The sheer amount of visiting journalists hanging around and praying for the worst to happen so they can report somethingwould more than make up for any foreseeable short fall in foreign earnings.
Every one of them reporters UN delegates and all would have to lodge in hotels, use taxi cabs, eat, drink, and fornicate, all things “tourist like” they would probably even buy souvenirs’. Bringing untold amounts of the much needed American dollar. The truth is war tourism is an emerging branch of the global travel business that we cannot afford to ignore.
The beauty of it is that all of these would come to be without Nigeria wasting a kobo in the name of hosting some international nondescript sporting event or the other that always fails to hold the interest of Nigerian and foreigners alike. By pretending to be a terrorist nation, we would enjoy the status and respect accorded to an oil rich nation at war with America (think Iran) and still sit back and relax with the confidence that we would not wake up one morning to the sound of nuclear bombs dropping overhead courtesy of the almighty America because our bluff would be similar to the thrusting of an index finger into another’s face by an aggressive co-wife before the commencement of a big fight. The rule state that; her mate, no matter how strong can only reply with only a more vigorous thrusting and wait until the aggressor throws the first real slap. Which in our case, we shall forever deny America. And thus we shall remain at peace with ourselves, secured, happy and enjoying the new prosperity of war tourism.
As it turned out a few days after Farouk’s incident the story took on a new twist. American intelligence officers had come up with what in their opinion is the list of terrorist and Para-terrorist nations. Nigeria unsurprisingly was on that list. This announcement was immediately followed by several protests and appeals from the Nigerian people and government calling for a removal of our name from the dreaded list. All of the snivelling and grovelling were so unnecessary as it again failed to yield any results.
Instead of whimpering like babies we should have reacted like a sensible independent nation state. What does it to come up with a list? Our own list. They put us on a list we put them on a list. With certain differences though. To start with ours shall be a secret but purposeless list of any ten countries with America at the top of it. The other nine countries would however remain top secret. The title and purpose of the list would likewise remain undisclosed. This sort of move is bound to generate untold excitement amongst world leaders and the international community.
We remember how bitter our sitting president felt about being snubbed by G-20 summit. This was our chance to get back at them. Leaders of almost industrialized nations would be nervously coming around to seek private audience with our president, to ask the dreaded question “is my country on your list?” and all of them would have to join a long waiting list to see the ailing Baba-go-slow.
Putting the US in our so called secret list would certainly push them into overdrive and keep them preoccupied and obsessed about Nigeria thus increasing our international popularity. America’s dirty habit of paying too much attention to the flimsy affairs of other nation has always been to its own detriment. This has been used to great advantage by Cuba and Vietnam in the past and presently by Iran and North Korea.
Now you may begin t wonder why then has the Nigerian people and government have collectively decided to abandon Abdulmutalab to American G.Is, well for one the gains to be derived from supporting his actions are not immediate and patience is not one of our strong points around here, thus we consider only the short term effects of Abdulmutalab’s actions which have already made it difficult for us to procure visas or easily get past airport security. It has probably made a few in the diasporaunemployable in security sensitive organizations. Abdulmutalab’s actions no doubt has brought great distress upon us all but I think the most unforgiveable part of all these is that he very nearly exploded the myth that it is typically un-Nigerian to dream, like really big dreams, plan and execute them, thus causing our government great embarrassment in the process.
Now how is the government going to explain why it can’t think of a creative approach to solving the power issue and reaching 6000mw remains a pipe dream, or why the ASUU issue has never really been resolved in the real sense. And for the citizens how would they explain how they came to be stuck with such bad government, and then personally how was I going to explain the fact that I never get to finish my writing on schedule. Abdulmutalab has exposed us all and it would be hard to forgive him. We don’t forget that way.
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