Sunday
December 27, 2009 |
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Nigerians received a bizarre Christmas
gift Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, a 23-year old man from a privileged
background, tried to pull off what could have been the bloodiest suicide
bombing in the US since September 11, 2001. Umar Mutallab had planned to
detonate explosives strapped to his body in order to bring down
Northwest Airline Flight 253 as the jet neared its destination in
Detroit, Michigan.
Had his gory plan succeeded, Umar – an engineering student at the
University of London and son of Umaru Abdul Mutallab, the just-retired
chairman of First Bank of Nigeria – would have unleashed mayhem and
terror not only on Americans but the world as a whole. Thanks to
vigilant passengers who wasted no time in pouncing on him the moment
they heard popping sounds, this bone-chilling disaster was averted.
Even so, this sickening plot by a sick child of privilege has become an
instant disaster for Nigerians everywhere, but especially those who live
or frequently travel abroad.
Fair or not (and there’s a lot of argument to be made on both sides),
Nigeria is portrayed in the foreign media as one of the great centers of
corruption and scams. Despite a well-established history of religious
fanaticism that spills out, intermittently, into orgies of killing in
Allah’s name, Nigeria somehow managed to escape being baptized a haven
of religion-induced terrorism.
Until, that is, last Friday when Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab imprinted
the name of Nigeria on the global consciousness as an address where
terrorists teem. Through his depraved bombing plot, this young man has
smudged the image of millions of tolerant Nigerian Muslims in the eyes
of the world. In fact, he’s given all Nigerians a notoriety they can ill
afford.
Nigerians who travel, or live abroad – especially in Europe, Asia and
North America – will bear the brunt of this dangerous new perception. In
a post 9/11 world where the lines between vigilance and hysteria are
often blurred, to be identified as sharing citizenship with a young man
who tried to incinerate a plane mid-air can mean great ordeal.
Throughout last week, I received calls from Nigerians living in the US,
the UK, or Europe. In each caller’s tone was a touch of dread. Some
wondered what Abdul Mutallab’s crazed design meant for the future of
Nigeria, a country already prostrate. Others were more concerned about
how the aborted drama of a bloody bombing would reshape their lives.
One friend, a professor at a top American university, told me about the
traveling trials of a colleague of his, a professor of Sudanese
nationality. On numerous occasions, the Sudanese scholar has been taken
off flights, or prevented from boarding one – all on account of the
man’s “Islamic” name and the Sudan’s reputation as a grooming ground for
al Qaeda terrorists. Another friend, a young executive at a major
American financial services company, related the experience of a
colleague of his, an Egyptian-American. He said that when he and his
colleague traveled together, the Egyptian-American was frequently
subjected to exacting, even intrusive, searches and exhaustive
questioning.
Travelers who carry the Nigerian passport know that they can count on a
certain level of scrutiny and hostility at foreign airports. Who needs
the added aggravation of being regarded as a terrorist – until you prove
otherwise?
In the 1990s, at the height of 419 scams and other forms of schemes
targeted at banks and gullible individuals, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) issued alerts warning American financial
institutions to be wary of hiring Nigerians. Such directives took a toll
on the career aspirations of many highly qualified Nigerian
professionals in the US who were turned back from jobs the moment their
passport gave them away. Many Nigerians who were working for financial
corporations were subjected to surveillance that presumed them to be
criminals – or, at least, crime-minded.
All that travail would pale to insignificance compared to the price
Nigerians resident abroad stand to pay if – God forbid – the impression
takes root that their country is a fertile soil for rabid zealots
willing to inflict mass-murder and other forms of mayhem on “infidels.”
How exactly did we get here?
One answer, of course, is that al Qaeda is a global scourge, with cells
embedded not only in Islamic nations but also in such liberal
democracies as Britain, Denmark, Canada and the United States of
America. In that sense, then, there’s nothing really extraordinary that
a Nigerian had stepped up to play his hideous part in a tragic plot.
But there’s also a sense in which Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab’s emergence
is the culmination of years of official nonchalance towards the
phenomenon of domestic religious violence. Tens of thousands of
Nigerians have perished in outbreaks of sectarian violence often
instigated by members of some fringe Islamic group or another. It’s
depraved, but not altogether unexpected, that zealots would from
sometimes arise in a frenzied spree, fueled by a hunger to massacre
non-believers in the name of their deity. But what’s even weirder is
that the government – whose primary mandate ought to be the protection
of lives and property – habitually indulges the slaughterers. On
numerous occasions, the Nigerian police and army elected to snore away
as fiends killed and destroyed in the name of “God.” Few, if any, of
those murderers were ever prosecuted, much convicted.
The Nigerian state, in permitting sanctimonious fanatics to get away
with their cruel sport, helped create Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab. In the
end, the difference between domestic religious terrorism and its
exportation is only a plane trip away.
Dora Akunyili, Umaru Yar’Adua’s “rebrand” guru, once disparaged
Nigerians resident abroad for tarring their country’s image through
excessive criticism. Akunyili should know better, but those were the
early days of her commission – and she was, it seemed, desperate to
convince her paymasters that she was equal to the magic, not of clearing
out shit, but applying deodorant on it.
Akunyili’s barbs at foreign-based Nigerians sought to create a false
dichotomy. She implied that some Nigerians – the homebound ones – view
their country more positively than the disconnected “exiles.” The truth,
and she knows it, is that there are indeed two groups of Nigerians, but
not along the lines she suggested. There are those – the vast majority –
who are dismayed by their country’s missed opportunities and derailed
promises. And then, there are others – a tiny group – who profess to
love Nigeria exactly the way it is.
Whether one is located abroad or at home has nothing to do with one’s
response to Nigeria. Interest is everything. Nigerians are like people
everywhere else: they want a decent country where they can live as
humans, secure in their lives and property. But there are the few,
leeches and parasites whose appetites are as huge as their minds and
consciences are miniscule, who take callous pleasure in a dysfunctional
Nigeria. For them, dysfunction is a necessary condition for the kind of
primitive accumulation in which they thrive.
Once the majority awakes to the fact of its numerical superiority – and,
from the way things are shaping up in the country, that’s bound to
happen sooner than later – then they will stand up and reclaim their
country from the calloused hands of the few manufacturers of misery and
death in our midst. That’s one way to ensure that the Umar Farouk Abdul
Mutallab and his ilk don’t define the rest of us.
