Tuesday, May 11, 2010

In My Humble Opinion #2

Terrorist? No Way
I am proud of my home country Nigeria, but recently Nigeria has been portrayed in a negative light through the American news media. My country’s name has been dragged through the mud because of an alleged bomber from Nigeria. A 23 year-old- named Hmar Farouk Abdulmutallab was caught hiding and trying to detonate explosives in plane 253 was carrying passengers from Amsterdam to Detroit. I personally would gladly say on behalf of all Nigerians that we are pleased that Abdulmutallabs attempted act of terrorism failed and he was contained by the American authorities or else Nigerians will be singing a different tone and not a good one.
For this act of terrorism, Nigeria is now listed as a terrorist country and now being monitored for any terrorist activities by U.S homeland security. Although, it is a very humiliating situation, that someone’s evil intentions puts the entire country of Nigeria on a constant terrorists watch list.
The story was all over the news media especially CNN. The phrase “The Nigerian Bomber” was constantly slash all over or stretched across the television and radio news.
In my humble, opinion Nigeria is definitely not a country that practice terrorism.
It is a country that would never be associated with terrorism. We Nigerians will definitely not fold our arms and watch this act of terrorism to be a big smear on our already sodden image of our great Nation and puts the traveler’s comfort of over 150 million in great danger.
The recent news from Nigeria, is that the Nigerian officials have decided to denounce the alleged bomber their country despite the fact that he left the country about ten years age and the Nigeria has also decided to tighten its security from such an alleged terrorist plot to ever happen to them.
The U.S had released a list of 14 countries under terrorist watch in which Nigeria is part of; the remaining 13 countries are Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Cuba , Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Saudi Arabia and Sudan.
Not to talk of the nightmare Nigerian passengers travelling would have to go through and face extra security screening. This screening includes body-pat and carry-on baggage checks. The sense of security has heightened in American airports.
Nigerian- Americans are having to signed up on Facebook to petition in getting Nigeria off that horrible list. Nigeria has contributed the 4th largest contingent to UN peacekeeping missions for over 5 decades now. We have produced world-class citizens like Nobel Peace Prize winner Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe a great international novelist amongst others.
So why should we now acknowledge a Christmas Day attempted bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab; a terrorist? No Way!!!! Like the Facebook page said “Nigerians are good people, we are not terrorists, we love life.”

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