25/12/2009: The day Nigeria stood still.

On Christmas Day in the year 2009, just as Santa made his way across the arctic ocean, it is alleged that a young Nigerian (name withheld) boarded a transatlantic flight from Ghana to the United States bearing explosives in his underwear. The summary of the white house review of December 2009 corroborates this story.

In my opinion of the US as a global superpower, i find it a bit unnerving that the TSA could allow such a close attempt within its nations skies even after there were several reports made to US consulates, security and law enforcement agencies.

The white house in its statement admits to failures in intelligence, shortcomings of the watch-listing system among other findings. This is understandable as intelligence is not an end to itself, it is simply processed data which provides a framework that stakeholders are to act upon. The simple and only thing that should have been done by the US government and its agencies was to place the alleged bomber on the "No-fly List", but due to a systemic failure this was not done.

The US government despite their own admission of their errors still went ahead to place Nigeria on the terrorist watch-list. Nigerians were abashed; to say the least. We tried to do the right thing, we reported to the relevant authorities that there was a risk but No!, we still had to go down. The US senate later extended an invitation to the Father of the alleged suicide-bomber claiming it was an opportunity to correct the negative press the US had unfairly subjected Nigeria through.

It is unclear whether or not the Father honoured the invitation of the US senate but also to this day, little is known on the current situation of the alleged bomber. Whether or not this was a covert test gone bad, we might never get to find out, but the Nigerian image still remains marred. Nigerians have continued to be stigmatised at major airports worldwide, we need to take a stand against discrimination and unfairness from the global community. This is a clarion call to all peace-loving Nigerians!