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'Bomb attack bid' on US airliner


I had enjoyed Christmas Day and was preparing for the Boxing Day Sales. I always had the sneaky suspicion that most of the shops had been artificially inflating their prices to yield a maximum profit and now their wares were back to their ‘real prices’. I had tried to restrict my spending as much as possible in the run up to Christmas. Now, I would spend, spend and spend i.e. the £60 that I had managed to save. Then, I heard a piece of news that shocked me, on the BBC morning news on Boxing Day. It hit me with the full strength of a Tsunami, after hearing the news it came out as “NIGERIAN AL-QUEDA AGENT CAUGHT TRYING TO BOMB THE US ON CHRISTMAS DAY".

 What had happened is that a certain Mr Abdul Mudallad (aka. Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab), 23, a Nigerian national who is an engineering student at the student at University College London, ‘allegedly’ tried to blow up a Delta flight on route from Amsterdam to Detroit Metropolitan Airport, USA on Christmas Day. Mr Mudallad's name appeared on a “terrorist database” (US Intelligence) because he had "a significant terrorist connection". However Mr Mudallad’s name did not appear on the "no-fly" list (US Government), i.e. those deemed a significant risk that they were no longer allowed to fly by aeroplane because of the probability they might try to blow it up. Mr Mudallah ‘allegedly’ did try to blow up the plane with 300 people on board, just 20 minutes before landing. Although he was said not to be successful in blowing the plane but he manage to “significantly burn” himself, especially on his legs. From the news, we got the impression that he had been to Yemen where he collected an “explosive deceive” that was concealed on his body. The was a commotion aboard the plane during which there was a “pop” sound, fire extinguishers were used, and later Mr Mudallad was caught and it was said he started screaming about Afghanistan, etc.

 It came as shock to the system because it seems that the international terrorists had been restricted to people of Middle Eastern, Pakistani, Somalia, etc background. But a Nigerian being an international terrorist it was a concept that I found strange. We had the Nigeria Taliban, Boko Haram, etc. Thousands had lost their lives when the various states in the Northern part of Nigeria had adopted Sharia law. Because of the complexity of Nigeria and tribalism, I had always though that all these had incidents had tribal undertones to them. But it seems one of these incidents have left our shores and gone global. I hope that the recent occurrence will not affect Nigerians.

 Although at various airports with the green passport they might consider that you are carrying drugs, many Nigerians go through the humiliating and embarrassing situation of being treated as ‘drug traffic suspects’. What ever our experience, we could always see that those who were terrorist suspects going through far worst. Once you had a beard and were of Middle Eastern appearance and wore the dress, it was as if someone put a sign post stating “AL-QUEDA” in bold red big letters above your head. You could be delayed, strip searched, etc. Some people even refused to enter the plane once you were on board. We can look forward to being treated as potential “Terrorist Suspects” because profilers would have entered the incident (of Mr Abdul Mudallad) into their Database and from now on all Nigerians are potential “Terrorist Suspects”.

 A case of point is that of Ms Samantha Marson, a 21 year British student. Who was travelling from Miami to London on Saturday the 17th of January, 2004. She made a joke of having bombs in her bag. She was immediately handcuffed and arrested, eventually charged with making a false bomb report (I presumed that after confirming that there was no bombs present by strip searching her and I am sure this would involve a rectal examination by an over zealous officer who was bent on finding drugs). There was a potential that she could face a 15 year sentence. She was released after paying a bail bond of $5,000 and spending 4 nights in prison. It seems she would not return to USA in a hurry.

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