By Bisi Ojediran

I imagine how US President Barack Obama would have felt if he tried putting in a call to Nigerian authorities on hearing the news of Farouk Abdulmutallab’s attempt to detonate explosives on Delta Northwest Airlines Flight 253 with 278 passengers and crew aboard. That is if he had not expected a call from Nigeria, as he would have from another country in that situation. “President Umaru Yar’ Adua has been away in a Saudi hospital for over 30 days,” he would have been reminded. “And the Vice President Goodluck Jonathan can be of no immediate help because he is not in charge.

” “What a……” Obama would have been tempted to say (I don’t know him to use swear words). But certainly he would have been shocked about the current status of Nigeria, which in White House confidential records is one of the pillars for the emancipation of the impoverished and poorly governed African continent. That is how Nigerians are ending the year. No effective leader! Farouk Abdulmutallab is a Nigerian! And a silver-spoon son of a highly placed Nigerian for that matter! No matter how well his background is rationalized, no matter how strong the defence mechanism, he is a Nigerian who has thrown air travel around the world into chaos with untold hardship for travellers, now subjected to body search.

The introduction of a 3D scan that strips travellers naked on the security screen is now likely, in spite of the heavy criticism against its use. For all agonizing travellers now, Nigeria, a country notorious for scam and corruption has added to its pain stimuli. The country is ending the year on a bad note in international relations, caused principally by poor representation or absence at important international fora. Now, Farouk has caused another coating of tar on Nigeria’s international image. And bad time awaits Nigerian travellers. Extra attention is normally applied to passengers arriving from Nigeria at busy airports around the globe because of concerns over fraud and smuggling. Now, it is going to get worse. For President Obama, he is gradually confirming my fears that his relatively soft stance with terrorists may cost the US another attack that will not only make his name a hate word, but also ruin his presidency. But that is a subject of another Tolling Bells piece.

Farouk’s father reported him to US authorities and according to reports a file was opened on Farouk, but as one official said, “one part of the system that absolutely failed” was that Abdulmutallab was able to board a plane to the United States allegedly with PETN. Well, it emerged yesterday that Farouk had been barred from entering the UK. With a bruised image and limping on the global scene, Nigerians would have been compensated if they are better off at home during a year that will end in three days. Are we better off in 2009? Well, the Vice President may have provided an answer in Abuja over the weekend when he spoke after a Christmas thanksgiving service.

He said Farouk has compounded the country’s challenges of fuel scarcity, kidnapping, weak economy and poor state of infrastructure, among others. I like that honest talk! To have said otherwise would have been a negation of the socio-economic rights of the majority of Nigerians who have been impoverished during the year. In the books, the economy, with and overall real GDP growth averaged about 6 per cent during the first half of 2009, a National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) preliminary estimate of a real GDP growth rate of 7.6 percent during the third quarter of 2009, and a decline of year-on-year headline inflation, looks good. But that is yet to translate into better living standards.

The true measure of a good economy is the wellbeing of the average citizen or family. Has the individual or family experienced improvement in living standards – better access to social amenities like water, health, education and power supply? Has the quality or even quantity of food on the dining table increased? And have there been improved opportunities to earn a living? Well, with about 70 per cent of Nigerians in the poverty bracket, and with a high level of unemployment, the answer is obvious. Of course, with a raging global economic crisis and a depressed crude oil market, Nigeria started the year on a bad note. Revenue from both oil and non-oil sources were below projections for the first half of 2009, and the aggregate revenue available for distribution to the three tiers of government fell short of projected estimate by about 26 per cent. But that can hardly be a justification for the bitterness of many Nigerians during the year.

Any suggestion that the country fared better will shock many Nigerians who have been denied basic necessities of life, even at this festive period. For a major oil producing country with at least three refineries to deny its citizens fuel during this period is crass insensitivity. And to be insulted that the scarcity of petrol was caused by saboteurs, and not government, when an apology should have been made to Nigerians, is gross disrespect of our socio-economic rights. When did it become the lot of the governed to fight economic saboteurs or fuel subsidy racketeers? Many Nigerians know that the lingering fuel scarcity originated from the poor handling of the planned deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. With high prices of goods and services caused by the fuel scarcity and the hardship encountered in the sourcing of fuel by consumers, this festive season could have been better celebrated.

Reports of some lawmakers’ refusal to travel home for the fear of kidnapping should be funny, but it is depressing. Security, one of the key deliverables people look up to government for has also become a major challenge in the country. Security is a deliverable on government’s Seven –Point Agenda. So also is improved electricity supply, over which Nigerians perhaps feel the greatest disappointment. This is because not only was a promise made, huge sums of money was voted on a regular basis for it, and even when facts on the ground called for caution, those in charge boasted they could make it happen. A prominent minister from the South was so sure about it that he boasted it would be achieved during the year to turn the economy around. But as time wore on towards the deadline, and reality dawned, a defence mechanism started to be built. The high drama of it all was during the defence of her 2010 budget at the National Assembly.

A power outage had triggered calls of “6000 Mega Watts” and a question on the December deadline to which Information Minister Dora Akunyili responded, “I am not the minister of power.” Well, many Nigerians spent Xmas in darkness, as they have been in most of the year. That of course is not better life. Without electricity, there is not much the manufacturing sector can do. Investors in the sector are quick to say it is dead. May be not yet, but many companies, including vital ones like tyre companies, have closed shop. Survivors are bracing it but with worsening cost of production because they have to provide their own infrastructure, they say it is tough. Perhaps, the capital market is one area where the pain of Nigerians can be rationalised. The stock market crashed as did all other stock markets around the world. Many Nigerians, including former governor Chief Segun Osoba and the Oba of Lagos have lost millions. So have smaller investors.

But hope that the market would take a cue from recovering markets has been dashed. Return on Investment during the year declined by 65 per cent from the N280 billion paid out in 2008. The story of the money market is interesting. The other day, a worried investor said with so much money stolen by bank executives and the heavy losses declared by banks, Nigerians would have woken up one morning to discover that there are no banks in the country anymore. An exaggerated joke, but certainly the new CBN Governor Lamido Sanusi, has stemmed a dangerous trend and hopefully, sanity will be restored in the banking halls; hopefully the stock market which the reforms further shrank will recover; and hopefully the credit crunch will ease to get the economy growing again.

The judiciary has fared well, but not so the National Assembly, which is still on an ego trip. For example, there is no reason for the constitutional review process should be duplicated. People are also not comfortable with the many vital bills waiting to be passed. However, it is fair to say with the Amnesty in the Niger Delta, which has restored relative peace in the area, and the civil service reforms, President Yar’ Adua was doing a good home run for the year before he broke down. Governance has also improved in the states. I counted 12 with a high performing governor from a southern state last week, but with so much power and resources at the centre, poor performance at that level, easily rubs off on the nation. Although some ministries have done well, our concern is the over all well being of the people. From there, hope is fading. When hope fades, it makes space for depression. But depression is horrible in part because it cuts you off from your future or, more precisely, your sense of the future. The bleakness of the present is so oppressive just because you can’t imagine an alternative for tomorrow.

By Reuben Abati

Once upon a time in this country, it was fashionable to consider certain things impossible, indeed un-Nigerian. Before the 1960s, many Nigerians considered military intervention in Nigerian politics impossible. Even when the first military coup in Africa occurred: not here, was the refrain on the lips of Nigerians. But then it happened. In the 70s, many Nigerians also never imagined a day when many Nigerians would eat crumbs from dustbins as a result of poverty. It also happened. There is a long list of “would never happen-s” which have since become elements of rude awakening in the Nigerian experience. I concluded long ago that Nigerians are capable of anything. Nothing in this country shocks me anymore.

Up until recently, I kept only one line of faith open: I could still argue that Nigerians are not likely to engage in suicide bombing no matter how fanatical they may be about any cause. Even when reports made it clear that a group of Al Qaeda fanatics had set up cells in parts of the North, I still held on to that last shred of faith in the Nigerian. Why? Nigerians I would argue love life so much that they would cling to it; their own lives that is, not the lives of others. They could kill and destroy, but that average Nigerian would like to preserve himself. We are the happiest people on earth, not so? And didn’t one dictionary describe a major segment of our population, the Yoruba as “the fun-loving people of South West Nigeria”. Well, even that my resilient line of thought now appears wishful. Boko Haram has shown us that many are willing to die for stupid causes. The latest incident involving the 23-year old Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab has further proven the point that everything is possible in a country and among a people who lost their moral compass.

Abdul Mutallab is a most unlikely terrorist or suicide bomber. He is said to be a student of Engineering at the University College , London and the son of a well-known and well-heeled father. What could have driven him to such extremes, that he would attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound aircraft with 278 persons on board? And he is a Nigerian! He is young, privileged: the kind of silver spoon kid that everyone would imagine was being groomed to inherit a part of the earth. What could have happened to such a young man that he would think he is better off serving the Al Qaeda? He reportedly got the chemical substance that he wanted to detonate from Yemen , and as other passengers overpowered him, they said he kept screaming about the situation in Afghanistan . How is that his problem? Everyone on that flight must be heaving a sigh of relief that the Nigerian-born would-be bomber failed in his mission and that he ended up with burned legs, and the prospect of spending the rest of his life behind bars.

It is not a good story for Nigeria . The would-be bomber’s association with Nigeria further casts a slur on the country’s image. It took only a few Nigerians being arrested for drug trafficking before we all became drug couriers in the eyes of immigration officials in the West. A few Nigerians added a new dimension to con-art, and the world slapped all Nigerians with the label of 419, as if we invented the confidence trick. When next a Nigerian shows up at any airport anywhere in the world, he is likely to be scrutinised henceforth as if he were an agent of the Al Qaeda. Don’t be surprised if in the next few days, the Western media jumps to the conclusion that Nigeria is a major recruitment ground for terrorists, requiring every Nigerian to be treated with suspicion. Our case will not be helped by the acts of terror in the Niger Delta nor would it be helped in any way by the news that barely a week before the Mutallab incident, a local would-be bomber had tried to deliver a bomb parcel at the offices of Super Screen Television in Lagos . Professor Dora Akunyili must be biting her fingers. At a time when she is trying to rebrand the country positively, one Abdul Mutallab has just made global nonsense of all the seminars, all the appeals, all the campaigns, all the slogans, and all her passion about rebranding Nigerian. What is that slogan again? Good people, great country? Mr Mutallab and his failed bomb would not qualify as a good advertisement.

The Nigerian Minister of Aviation, Babatunde Omotoba must also be having sleepless moments. The would-be bomber reportedly started his journey from Nigeria . It doesn’t matter that he was not detected at the Amsterdam Airport and that nobody suspected him while he was airborne in the Western airspace: more questions are likely to be raised about all flights emanating from Nigeria . For, at the heart of the Abdul Mutallab incident is both home and international security. We need not quibble over the Nigerian side of it: security at Nigerian airports is lax. Oftentimes the screening machines do not work. Airport security would go through your luggage with their dirty hands. Many of them don’t even bother to wear gloves. I saw one guy inspecting one passenger’s (I guess dirty) underwear, and then he was to go through my own bag, I quickly moved to another security personnel. Instead of using metal detectors, on many occasions, the officials frisk you with bare hands, pressing your pockets, with some of the mischievous ones trying to touch what they should not. An allegedly privileged child like Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab may not even need to go through security screening. Big men and their wives and children are often piloted through security; they could go straight to the tarmac to board the aircraft, depending on the scope of their influence. With the power of cash, anything can be taken onto an aircraft in Nigeria .

The story is also not good for Islam. The would-be bomber being a Muslim further strengthens a growing suspicion and stereotype, and an established profile of the terrorist in the mind of the West: the terrorist as Al-Qaeda, the terrorist as Muslim. With this incident also coming shortly after the Boko Haram mass murder in Northern Nigeria, it is difficult to blame those who are insisting that Nigerian faces a dangerous threat from Islamic fundamentalism. But our problem is not with Islam, but with bigotry, and demagoguery, and the colour of bigotry is not Islamic, there are Christian bigots just as there are extremists among adherents of traditional African religion. In 1993, some young Nigerians had hijacked an aircraft, they took it to Niger where they were arrested and subsequently tried and jailed. They were defending the June 12 Presidential election and they were not all Muslims. We must be cautious for there are commentators who are already rushing to judgement against Islamic Nigeria. Nor should this become an occasion for Hausa/Fulani bashing. When Nigerians reduce everything so conveniently to an expression of ethnic contempt, they gloss over the facts of a case. Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was certainly not acting on behalf of the Islamic North of Nigeria. He is most likely either sick or a product of failed parenting, or simply tragically impressionable.

By African standards, this must be a great tragedy for his parents and other members of his family. The Devil has used their family to discredit the whole of Nigeria and bring shame upon the land. Would they disown him and claim that he is not a member of their family, not even a Nigerian? Most parents would give anything to have their children go to school in England . Children are expected to do well and bring joy to their parents. That is the African way. But to have a child from a well-known family end up as a terrorist is quite revealing. If he had succeeded, I doubt if his parents would feel that he would be on his way to Heaven surrounded by seven virgins as the myth says! Now we know: it is not only the children of the poor who engage in criminal activities; the rich also cry; and in this regard, poverty does not always explain deviant social conduct.

The incident reminds America again of how much it is hated by bigots and fanatics around the world and how vulnerable it is. We live in the American century, but with the enemies of America recruiting agents from all over the world, and the most unlikely places, shows how dangerous the American century is. World peace is threatened. Hate is the dominant spirit of the age. The shape of war has changed: it is no longer on the battlefield; it could arrive in the shape of a pillow, a syringe and a pack of powder and liquid that is designed to kill 278 persons if it works. Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab could have succeeded. He was inside the aircraft; the flight was on its way, effectively inside American territory. Either a fortunate stroke of serendipity or amateurishness foiled the plan. But there is something in all of this about the vigilance of the American intelligence system. They knew about Mutallab, the terrorist. He had been on their watch-list although they didn’t consider him high-risk. Could they have followed him to and from Nigeria ? Even if he escaped the security system in Nigeria (trying to be charitable here), and the more efficient system at Amsterdam Schipol, was he possibly walking into a prepared net? The agility with which someone sitting close by jumped over other passengers and wrestled him to the ground was more than coincidental. Who was the expert Good Samaritan? “They took him out and it was really quick”. A CIA officer on duty? Within an hour, the White House had been informed and a statement was issued with President Obama’s authority; who is also personally monitoring the investigations. There are other angles to this story that are not yet in the public domain.

The Nigerian government has acted properly by issuing a statement. The Ministry of Information and Communications has said that the “Federal Government of Nigeria received with dismay the news of an attempted terrorist attack on a US airline. We state very clearly that as a nation, we abhor all forms of terrorism. The Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria , Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has directed Nigerian security agencies to commence full investigation of the incident. While steps are being taken to verify the identity of the alleged suspect and his motives, our security agencies will cooperate fully with the American authorities in the on-going investigations. Nigerian government will be providing updates as more information becomes available.”

To keep quiet would mean that the Nigerian government does not really care if the Mutallab incident turns all of us into potential terrorists in the eyes of the world. But the statement does not go far enough. It should include a direct condemnation of the would-be bomber and a declaration that Nigerians are peace-loving people. The Nigerian Government must take a keen interest in the details of the investigations at the American end, and also conduct its own investigations as promised. President Barack Obama snubbed Nigeria during his maiden visit to Africa as American President. Mrs Hillary Clinton later visited only to abuse Nigerian leaders. The other day, she classified Nigeria along with Cuba as a country that is able and capable but unwilling to make progress. What other things do the Americans know about us that are not yet public knowledge?

Mutallab, a former Federal Minister and bank chief, and father of the terrorist with Yemeni connections, has been quoted as saying that Mutallab, the son, is a problem child and that months ago, he had reported him to the US authorities. He is also said to be in Abuja assisting the Nigerian security agencies. Mutallab, the father, deserves our sympathies. This is at a private level, the story of his own failure and a lesson to all parents.