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Rebranding after Abdulmutallab

Author: Kayode Idowu | Published:Monday, January 4th, 2010

Over since he made his misguided suicide attempt to blow up an in-bound American jetliner, young Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has just about become the face of Nigeria before the world community. Nothing – and I mean precisely nothing – has ever before placed this country in such an intense global focus and repeated mention. Unfortunately though, and nearly as always, for the wrong reason. Twenty-three-year-old Abdulmutallab, obviously, was acting on the inspiration and instigation of the notorious terrorist network, al-Qaeda, in far away Yemen when he tried to detonate high-power explosives on a Detroit, United States-bound transatlantic Delta Airline flight that was hauling some 300 passengers, just some 20 minutes to landing. Besides, the terror bid had the cruel hallmark of al-Qaeda: it was intended to be delivered as a gruesome ‘Christmas Day gift’ to the world if Providence had not intervened to avert it. But then, this lad is being famously and frequently referred to in global reports as the ‘Nigerian bomber,’ in obvious allusion to his native country. Umar Farouk, as we already know, is the youngest of the 16 children of frontline mogul, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, through his second wife. By fair societal standards, the father is a respected Nigerian mogul and must be intensely distressed by the acutely negative reputation that Umar had incurred on the family and Nigeria. But Umar is his blood, and that much he can’t deny now.

Even though Umar has spent far less days of his young life in Nigeria than he has spent abroad, he is nonetheless a Nigerian. Worse, global reactions to his botched terror bid tend to suggest that the act is typically Nigerian. And so, there has been a swift backlash on Nigerians by way of extra-rigorous screening procedures in airports across the world, and a crushing regime of visa processing and allotment. But really, there is nothing Nigerian about Umar’s terror bid. He has had all his education outside this country, was radicalised in Britain and brainwashed into suicide bombing in Yemen. In other words, Umar is no more representative of the Nigerian personality than Briton Akmal Shaikh, who was executed last Tuesday in China for drug smuggling, was representative of the British personality.

It isn’t that this argument cuts any ice with the cynical global community, which has been extensively assisted by the grossly incompetent handling of the Nigerian nationhood to form an iron-cast negative image of the country. Besides, it is obvious now that the country’s image managers, like Information and Communication Minister Dora Akunyili, have been left literally foundering by the Abdulmutallab phenomenon. Hence there hasn’t been much of the ‘rebranding’ junket since the Christmas Day event. All seems quiet now – for God knows how long – on the ‘good people, great nation’ sloganeering, as there is a more urgent task of clearing the country’s image of the Abdulmutallab phenomenon.

Since Nigeria can’t disown Abdulmutallab (he is the son of a respectable Nigerian who actually made effort to avert the Christmas Day incident by reporting his son’s queer behaviour to both Nigerian and American authorities), the least the country’s image managers could do now is to mitigate the damage by fiercely highlighting the wholesale foreign influence in the lad’s terror bid. In other words, Umar is Nigerian by birth, but he has neither lived for long in Nigeria nor picked the inspiration for his terror bid from within this country. Getting this message clearly across to the world seem potentially helpful to lessen, no matter how minimally, the suspicion of every Nigerian as a potential terrorist – with all the adverse consequences.

Trust Madam Dora: she didn’t sleep on this line of argument. On the heels of the Christmas Day terror attempt, she declared that Umar is a stranger to Nigeria, and reflects nothing of the Nigerian personality or the safety of Nigerian airports. Addressing a press conference in Lagos, she said: "We want to reiterate that Nigeria as a nation abhors all forms of terrorism. Nigerian security agencies are working hand in hand with international security agencies in this matter. The man in question has lived outside the country for a while. He sneaked into Nigeria on December 24 2009 and left the same day. The father, Umaru Abdul Mutallab, who is a responsible and respected Nigerian with a true Nigerian spirit, had earlier reported his son’s activities to relevant U.S. authorities. The father has already expressed deep shock and regret over the son’s action."

She added: "We want to assure everybody that our airports are very safe, having just passed ICAO security audit and the American Transportation security administration audit in November 2009. However, in the light of the new development, we have reinforced our security systems at all our airports."

My personal inclination is to support this line of argument. But, really, the issue here is trite. If Nigeria had a credible education system that all her citizens believe in, perhaps this young fellow would never have had cause to be exiled by his wealthy parents who shopped him abroad in the quest for high-standard education. The moral, therefore, is that until Nigeria boasts of a credible education system that does not make foreign education compelling for the rich who could afford it, there may be many more potential Abdulmutallabs among our the young ones who have been exiled abroad to study.

There are, of course, two dimensions to the trend. Remember Aisha Dalhatu? She is the damsel who also was squirreled abroad for good education by her father, and who sometime last year won a United States presidential award for academic brilliance. Whereas she brought honour to Nigeria, Abdulmutallab brought shame and disreputation; but the instigation for their foreign odyssey is the same, namely the decayed education system in Nigeria. Taking a cue from the Abdulmutallab phenomenon, the ‘rebranding’ crusade by Madam Dora and company should concentrate the government’s energy on putting healthy public systems, like education, in place and do away with idle sloganeering.