Date Published: 12/31/09

ABDULMUTALLAB: A SILVERSPOON KID TURNED TERRORIST (CONCLUDED) By Temple Chima Ubochi

When one finger touches the oil, it spreads to the other four (otu nkpisi aka ruta manu, ya ezu ndi ozo) (Igbo Proverb)

This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the free and democratic world and terrorism. (Tony Blair)

Protecting America from terrorism requires more than just resolve, it requires a plan. As we have seen in Iraq, planning is not the Bush Administration’s strong suit. (Nancy Pelosi)

You have to be more careful in a world filled with all types of weapons, some of which are in the hands of terrorists (Boris Yeltsin)

The reporting of his son, by Alhaji Mutallab, to the United States authorities is seen by this writer as delegating of responsibility as a father. What did he want to achieve by that action? It’s the God given responsibility of the father to raise his child uprightly and he, who fails in that, should own up to his failure and there is nothing Alhaji Mutallab says or does now that would exonerate him from this failure here. He might have succeeded, just like his ilk, in looting our resources, which he uses in raising his children, but, he has failed to raise this one uprightly. He should have withdrawn the boy from the university once he noticed his dangerous political/religious conviction, he should have cut off the amount of money he made available to him. There’s no way a boy of 23 could be left on his  own, living in a 4 million pounds residence with access to huge amount of money in a faraway land without regular parental oversight. That’s where Alhaji Mutallab failed. The money he stole from Nigeria and stashed away in foreign accounts in England, which his son had access to, made it possible for the young Mutallab to be travelling everywhere, even to Dubai and Yemen where he was brainwashed and ordered to go and kill his fellow human beings. Nothing stops Alhaji Mutallab, as one of the “owners of Nigeria”, who travels to anywhere when and how he likes, to always go to London to see how his son is faring and to all the other places his son had been to, to know his aim and missions in those places.

That’s the nemesis; he can’t steal our commonwealth and his son would be living like a king in London, while the sons of other Nigerians cannot even attend a Nigerian university because their parents could not afford their school fees. At a point, the pay time would come and those who short-changed Nigerians would pay heavily for it. All those who stole our commonwealth, should be ready for the judgment day; they would all pay through one way or the other, even their children and grand children would not be spared. Someone cannot covet what that belongs to all and expects to have it all good in life. This is just the beginning of bad things for all the looters and embezzlers of Nigeria.

African Globe Newspapers, New York wrote:

“Idolizing Mutallab the father is mere nonsense. The father and the son are the same ten and ten pence. The apple does not fall far from the tree. He taught the boy the ropes. The boy learned from his father. Call me a pessimist; I think that Mutallab the father was merely protecting his banking ass, his wealth. He is no good. So, he reported that his child was a suicide artist? SO WHAT? What has that got to do with anything?

1. Is there any evidence that Dr Mutallab was anti-suicide bombing or beheading?

2. Is there any evidence that Dr Mutallab was not a Sharia-Islamist? Did he not support Sharia?

3. Mutallab the father, did he not introduce the younger Mutallab to Islam and therefore to danger?

4. Is there any evidence that Dr Mutallab had spoken against the Igbo genocide, pogroms and alienation etc?

5. Has Dr Mutallab ever spoken against Maitatsine, Zaki-Zaki, Boko Haram, Jos, Maiduguri, etc etc...?

6. Has Mutallab the father ever asked for punishment for murderers, and beheaders of Igbo and Easterners?

7. Is there any evidence that if Mutallab the father wasn't older, that he would not have become a suicide bomber himself?” 

There is no way he will be absolved of the irrational and irresponsible behaviour of his son. He gave him a posh house in London and ready cash to spend as he wishes. There is no doubt, that his son is a spoilt child and he as, the father, must take part of the responsibility. Afterall, Ambassador Adeniran lost his posting because his 23 years old wayward son was the leader of a small group of young Nigerians who allegedly gang-raped young women in the USA.

This writer concurs with people who said that those who stole our commonwealth and became millionaires and billionaires while 98% of Nigerians are walloping in abject poverty and penury, had ample opportunity to help create a better life, and a more morally upright society for everyone, but they chose to look after their own narrow parochial interest, and provided the "best education money can buy" for their offspring - rather than good education for all. These are the results of these vain endeavours that we are today witnessing. And it is never too late, this is another chance for them all to advice their children on life matters since money is not their problems.

Almost all Nigerians, including this writer, are having a hard enough time raising their own children right. Anybody who fails in that endeavour should own up to his failure. Someone said that “It's about time these "wealthy" Nigerians stop looting, and start the business of raising responsible children!”

Some people said that people should focus on what matters in this case and not frivolities such as where the boy obtained the explosive device or jubilating that his father reported him.  The boy committed a terrorist act that could have killed more than 287 people.  That’s it.  That in and of itself is a wicked act for which he will receive what’s due to him in court!

Some of these parents believe in I-sent-you to-best-school ideas. And it is up to you to find your tracks in life. Some one pointed out that “we are here beginning to witness the limit to the morality of Nigerian “wealthy families”. Less than two months ago, one of the stolen sons of Nigeria's ambassador designate to the US, Dr. Adeniran, was involved in the gang rape of American girls. Now, the son of another moneyed Nigerian is involved in a planned terrorist act. We are seeing what Nigeria's looted monies are buying for the looters and their children...The 'Laws of Karma' working? Now think about these young men and women who never worked in their fives, but are living like kings, enjoying the best things that life can offer here in Nigeria and in different parts of the world. 

Some one also noted. “We all need to take a deep breath, relax and think seriously about what is befalling the country Nigeria. We all need to ask ourselves the question of what could have driven a young man born with silver spoon in his mouth to hate life and hate humanity to the point of joining a terrorist group with the intention of killing. Mr. Farouk is an indicator of the rottenness permeating the polity of Nigeria.70% of Nigeria population are 24 years or less. If you do not create hope for this group of people, you will create a fatalistic society. This haplessness usually leads to crime or revolution. It is time for us, the elites, in the society to start purging ourselves and the rouges amongst us. We the elites of Nigeria should forebode, repent of our wicked ways, turn our face to God Almighty, pay restitutions by returning all ill-gotten wealth back to the treasury. We should also purport in our heart that we would not participate, enable, or cover up evils in our society. If this call is not hearkened to, Nigeria is about to implode from within, and this would occurred within the next 5-years.A truth committee should be formed  in Nigeria to enable all Nigeria's past and present leaders and civil servants with ill-gotten wealth to refund 90% of these  wealth back into the treasury and asked for forgiveness."

 The after effect of all this would be devastating, if care is not taken. We learnt that it was a bomb sown in his (Mutallab) pants (trousers); that it was in a powder form hidden in his underwear. That he went to the rest room for 20 minutes and fixed the bomb and that at the end, the fuse malfunctioned, making the pants to catch fire. In the United States, Passengers travelling on Saturday and Sunday felt the consequences of the attempted attack. Several airlines told their passengers that new US regulations prevented them from leaving their seats from an hour before landing.

From now onward, passengers can expect to see more screening, bomb-sniffing dogs, and behavioural-detection specialists at some airports, but there will also be unspecified less visible precautions as well. This writer just wants to add, that due to the action of few Nigerians, all Nigerians are treated as suspects abroad. The flashing of the green passport is enough reason to treat a Nigerian as a drug suspect, as a 419ner and now as a terrorist. It’s saddening. A drug victim is responsible for his or her action, because, he or she decided to buy the drug; A 419 victim has him/herself to blame, because, he/she wanted to dupe, but, was duped in return. But somebody who is a victim of terrorist attack has no hands in his or her plight and fate, so terrorism is one of the worst crimes ever and that’s why blanket branding of Nigerians as “terrorists” might be so hard for so many of us to bear. Any time any Nigerian is being delayed un-necessarily at the international airports around the world, the person should understand that Farouk Mutallab caused it. This writer concurs with someone who adviced that all Nigerians should make sure their underwear is clean because Nigerian passport holders (men and women) should be ready to strip themselves because of this Mutallab of Nigeria. Do not blame the western world, when subjected to provoking search anywhere.

We learnt that US security agents have flooded the northern cities of Kano, Maiduguri, Sokoto and others, particularly those cities where Boko Harams sect members were recently discovered. The sources said in some cases, US security agents were not even ready to take instructions from local security authorities.

African Globe Newspapers, New York wrote: “In less than twenty-four hours, following the arrest of a Nigerian on-board an American Airline on suspicion of a terrorist act, American Security forces has invaded Northern Nigerian cities from Kano to Maiduguri in search of Al Quieda-related outfits. In some places, they defy local caution. The United States, according to sources who spoke to the PRESS late last Night, now believes that the radical Islamist Sects in these cities have been infiltrated by Al Quieda. “They blame it on Sharia introduction to these states, but more so on gross inequalities of wealth, abuse of power, lack of political leadership, corruption and inefficient police.

America is at war with Al Quieda “one source told me”. And they believe they have a national duty to destroy it anywhere they raise their heads, even at the discomfort of local authorities. But another source within the Nigerian SSS describe America's actions last night in Abuja  “as an invasion of our sovereign nation, they are taking advantage of our leadership vacuum in Abuja.

The CIA, according to multiple sources who spoke to NIGERIAN PRESS this morning, has been operating in several cities in the North since July. That was when the sect - Boko Haram - was destroyed in confrontations with both the Police and the Army.

However, according to African Globe Newspaper correspondent on the ground in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, thousands who feel that Sharia has achieved little have been joining more extreme cults and sects. The cults are made up of the same sort of disillusioned, unemployed and ill-educated young men who joined the insurgency in the Niger Delta.

Boko Haram (a local Hausa term that means “education is prohibited”) is the most famous of these groups. Its followers, as I reported earlier, were involved in a five-day gun battle with the police in July after some of them were arrested and hundreds killed. The leader of Boko Haram, Sheikh Muhammad Yusuf, was captured and murdered by Nigerian security forces.

So far, our Nigerian sources say, there is little real evidence that such dreadful links exist between Al Quieda and Boko Haram. The SSS has made this abundantly clear to the Americans, one of the sources say. Yet the Americans are determined to retrace the suspect’s journey to America. Already, the suspect's parents have been located in Nigeria. 

Perhaps, what is not in dispute is that groups like Boko Haram, will feed off the anger, bitterness and frustration of young men in northern Nigeria until something changes in the way Nigeria is governed. So combustible, idle young men are in bountiful supply!"

CIA complained many years ago about Nigeria as a potential terrorists’ base. What the operatives of the State Security Service (SSS) did then was to arrest two men in Kano suspected to be members of Al 'Quieda in 2007.  The men whose names were given as Abubakar Haruna and Isah A. are said to be in their twenties. They were picked up in Kano following weeks of intense intelligence gathering linking them with visits to several countries suspected to have contacts with known terrorist networks, particularly, Algeria. We learnt that upon the terror alert by the US government through its embassy in Nigeria, counter-terror detectives were drafted to different parts of the country with support from Western intelligence. (ThisDay October 31, 2007) But the problem was that Nigerian authorities and law enforcement agencies did not follow it up. Today, Nigeria is the regional base of terrorist organisations infiltrating through the porous borders from Niger, Sudan, Chad etc.

The Federal Government has directed the relevant security agencies in Nigeria to undertake full investigation into the alleged attempt to bomb a Northwest Airlines Boeing 330 plane in Detroit, USA, on Christmas day. The Federal Government in its reaction condemned the attempted bombing, saying it has opened its own investigation into the suspect and promised to cooperate fully with the United States authorities on the issue. The issue might die there and every government official would then only have something to say next time a would-be-bomber from Nigeria wants to perpetrate an atrocity somewhere.

The United States is blaming security at Lagos airport for allowing the would-be-bomber through. The United States is worried that the suspect was screened and given a clean bill of health at the Murtala Mohammed Airport, where he (Abdulmutallab) started his journey.

Dr Harold Demuren, Director General of Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) tried to exonerate Nigeria by asking "How did the passenger pass through the Amsterdam Airport security screening? Those who say there is no security in Nigeria airports, how did the passenger pass through the Amsterdam airport into the aircraft?"

This writer couldn’t agree less with those who said that Dr Harold Demuren has just betrayed his ignorance of a simple aviation procedure at the airport. In the first instance, to attempt to shift the focus to Schiphol airport is foolish. At Schiphol or other international airports, if one is on a connecting flight to another destination, he/she only needs to go through security checks if he/she exits the waiting room. Once your flight is ready, all one needs to go through the boarding gate and board the aircraft, is his/her boarding pass. So how can the Director-General of NCAA be ignorant of this basic procedure? Is he not aware that many Nigerians go through without proper checks by monetising security checks at the request of the security staff? Is he not aware that friends and relations of aviation staff do not go through normal security checks? Is the man in charge of our aviation aware that flights are routinely delayed for our "VIPs" and their entourage, and that their luggages are taken directly to the aircraft without proper checks? If he is aware of all these, what has he done? If he is not aware, what does he intend to do with these apparent security breaches? Nigerians have had enough of pedestrian stuff from those who are supposed to be in charge of national institutions.

Islamic religion is not that peaceful afterall. Although some would claim that the terrorists are extremists, fanatics, fundamentalists or whatever one calls them, but, there must be something in the religion that is influencing their erratic and aggressive behaviours. Otherwise how can one justify the madness going on in Nigeria from time to time: A Danish carton led to religious riot and the killing of southerners, burning of churches and properties; A beauty pageant led to the killing of southerners, burning of churches, destruction of properties; Israeli/Palestine conflict, thousands of miles away, led to killing of Christians, destruction of churches and properties. The Moslems think they are the only ones who have the right of existence and they believe they can lord it over everybody.

This is what Sir G.C.Umunnakwe said: “Since after the Northern Nigerian killing of innocent defenseless Easterners and the Igbos, the blood of the innocent continues to drive them to insanity. It is very difficult for me to identify my very self as a Nigerian having seen all the mess, iniquities, dubious and mischievous leadership the government practice everyday. The name Nigeria stinks and sounds criminally minded in all indications and how do you clean these mess when the water spoilage started from head of the stream and trickle down to the tributaries. Only God will deliver that country from all the evil leadership and corruption from high level”.

These are some of what this writer wrote in his article of Friday, August 14, 2009 ( nigeriaworld.com):

“The northern deceit to the concoction called Nigeria did not start today, it has been there all along. This is what Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, (who later became the first prime minister of Nigeria) said prior to independence while speaking in the Northern Region's House of Assembly:

“We do not want sir, our Southern neighbours to interfere in our development. I should like to make it clear to you that if the British quitted Nigeria now at this stage the Northern people would continue their interrupted conquest to the sea."

The Parrot (Newspaper) of Oct. 12 1960 wrote what Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto said twelve days after Nigeria's independence from Britain:

”The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate from our great -grand father, Othman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We must use the minorities in the North as willing tools, and the South as conquered territories and never allow them to have control of their future”.

The north has started, subtly, their uninterrupted conquest to the sea. Before now, the former Eastern Region (Enugu, Abia, Imo, Ebonyi, Anambra, Rivers, Bayelsa, Cross River, Akwa Ibom States) were religiously homogenous, but today, Islamic religion is gaining a strong foothold in those states. They have started building mosques everywhere in those states and are enticing the indigenes of those states to convert to Islam, due to harsh economic condition in the country, with money, contracts and scholarship for their sons and wards in Arabian universities. Today, it’s no longer hard to see an Igbo name with “Alhaji” attached to it. The worse of it all is that some Igbo prodigals like Orji Uzo Kalu and Governor T.A. Orji have allowed Islam to make a great in-road in Abia State for their selfish gains. Today, almost all the 17 LGAs of Abia State have a mosque each, but, there is no functional health care centre in any of them, no pipe-borne water and the LGAs workers have not been paid for months. Even Chuka Odom, who is the minister of state for FCT, a former deputy chief of staff to the then Governor Orji Uzor kalu and his party (PPA)’s representative in the so called government of national unity, said not too long ago, that he would convert to Islam if the money is good. Could anybody imagine that coming out of the mouth of a person who calls himself one of the Igbo leaders?

This terrorist act has stained Nigeria the more; it happened when Nigeria is just trying to build international aviation credibility. Arik Air just started direct flights to the United States, but, this terrorist incident has cast Nigeria and everything about it in a very bad light. This writer wonders if the Arik Air’s license would not be revoked or if flights from Nigeria to United States would not fly henceforth with scores of Air marshals on board or if Nigerians would to be treated more ignominious than before, now that this has happened.

Daily Independent Newspapers, on Thursday, October 11 2007, wrote a disgusting article about the silver spoon kids in Nigeria and this writer wrote an article against it then. Use the links provided to access both articles:

http://odili. net/news/ source/2007/ oct/11/605. html

http://nigeriaworld.com/feature/publication/ubochi/101507.html

Wishing you all, once again, a wonderful 2010 in advance!!!

THE THANXS IS ALL YOURS!!!

Temple Chima Ubochi writes from Bonn, Germany through ubochit@yahoo.com