Terror List And Nigeria, US Relations

The blacklisting of Nigeria as a terror risk state recently by the United States of America raises some salient issues that require addressing but roundly ignored by Washington.

In apparent response to the failed attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian to bomb a Detroit, US-bound Delta Flight 253, carrying 278 passengers and 11 crew members, for which the youngman is facing consequences of his action, the US authorities seem bent on punishing Nigeria diplomatically.

Apart from few cases of religious disturbances in the predominantly Islamic Northern Nigeria, Nigeria is a secular state never known to train terrorists or fund terrorism.

That perhaps accounts for the unanimous condemnation of the  Abdulmutallab misadventure, worried that it would negatively affect the country undergoing rigorous rebranding and ethical re-orientation.

Intelligence reports from even United Kingdom (UK) and Nigeria Security Services are agreed that the kid-terrorist’s worried father indeed reported the ominous fears which changes in his son’s behavioural pattern presented. Yet all security concerns failed to act because, according to UK intelligence officials, ‘Mutallab did not present sufficient danger to alert US-anti terror operatives’.

It is true that Nigerian security operatives equally got wind of the danger Mutallab exuded, but like the UK authorities failed to alert the top echelon of the Nigerian defence chain of command. For that singular inaction, the Nigerian authorities have in addition to commissioning comprehensive inquiry, also queried the affected operatives with a view to pronouncing sanctions.

This is why the decision of the US is hasty, unfair and indeed provocative. We say so because, there is no single evidence that Mutallab or any other for that matter were or are being groomed as international terrorists by the Nigerian state to prompt such general conviction of the entire country and her peoples.

Nigeria is neither Iraq, Afghanistan, nor Yemen. Being Africa’s most populous state with a secular constitution, Nigeria has never been known to be extremist, the isolated tiffs among various sects sometimes, notwithstanding.

In fact, Nigeria has been at the forefront of quelling international insurrection in war torn countries and at various times led the African Peace Keeping Forces to fight terror-related disturbances.

These, without doubt, attest  to the fact that Nigeria is indeed a proactive nation-state constantly in search of inter-sectoral peace and understanding and not one given to state sponsored terrorism.

That being so, it is proper to conclude that the US action against Nigeria is at best ill-advised. Why for instance, should Nigeria be blacklisted for an over-sight committed by both the UK security services and those of Nigeria. Is it because Matallab in Nigerian? It should not be.

But in implementation of their decision, US authorities have started subjecting Nigerian travellers to strenuous even dehumanizing scrutiny, a search regime which even Nobel laurete, Prof. Wole Soyinka described as very embarrassing.

The Tide calls on the US authorities to review its new search regime in the interest of the cordial relationship both countries have shared over the years, differences in approach to democratic excellence notwithstanding.

Such review will not only challenge Nigeria towards a renewed anti-terror proactivity but also put in place more purposeful internal security structures for global peace and understanding.