Al-Qaeda Plane Bomber's Nationalty.

Discussion in 'Off-Topic Discussions' started by kelechi, Dec 26, 2009.

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  1. kelechi

    kelechi New Member

    When news reports mentioned 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as the culprit responsible for trying to denote an explosion on the Northwest flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Detroit, Michigan this last Friday, a friend of mine immediately called me to highlight some very sensitive things to me. The things he told me were so true and I am going to be brutally truthful about them in this article. My friend who is Nigerian and who leaves in Texas told me that you know ever since he has been following news events about Nigerians, that he has never heard of them( Nigerians) being involved in any kind of Al Qaeda styled terrorism. According to him, the vast majority of Nigerians he knows here in the US are hard working and highly educated. However, the rogue elements of them are usually reported to engage in mostly economic crimes namely international advance fee frauds, credit card frauds, dubious wire transfers etc. But blowing up an airplane? He insisted that that is not a Nigerian crime. Think about it, what is the perpetuator of this crime going to get as compensation? There is not material gain for him. According to my friend, a Nigerian is just like an American who believes and hopes for a better life in future. He/she wants to live and actualize his/her dream of a better life.
    As someone who has spent a lot of years in Nigeria and last visited Nigeria in April, I know that Nigerians are not noted for acts like this. But as I think of it, I tend to have a little fear in me because the world is actually changing. Terrorism now has no boundaries and terrorist financiers can use any individual of any nationality for their evil acts. In fact it is increasingly becoming the norm that a terrorist is that disgruntled citizen of any nation. Remember Richard Reed, the British citizen who is well known as the shoe bomber for trying to explode whatever explosive he was carrying hidden in his shoes couple of years ago. Al Qaeda can recruit from anywhere they can capture low minded individuals whom they use to actually distort the teaching of Islam for their own nefarious intentions.
    As I ponder over what my friend told me, I increasingly keep coming to the conclusion that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab may not even be Nigerian. Have you ever thought of obtaining a Nigerian International passport? It is as easy as ABC. You see the level of corruption in Nigeria is astonishingly high. According to an index released by the international watch dog group Transparency International, Nigeria is ranked 130 out of the 180 countries covered by the report in 2009. What does that tell you? It is simple that everything is possible in Nigeria especially when it comes to official corruption. So it is very very easy to lay hands at a Nigerian International passport to commit any act that any individual wishes to commit. I have this belief that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab more than likely is not a Nigerian, but someone who acquires a Nigerian International passport for his evil intentions.
    Also come to think of it, Nigerian society or culture does not accept suicide (martyrdom) as a legitimate means of achieving any goal. It was never used by any side during the Biafran civil war in the 60’s. The three main ethnic groups in Nigeria namely the Yoruba abhor it, the Igbo distaste it and the Hausa condemn it.
    Even though the issue of religion is a deep rooted problem in Nigeria, Nigerians love life and hope for all the good things that come with it. . On my visit last April, a friend of mine told me that “Hope” is in fact a Nigerian. According to him a Nigerian is very hopeful and optimistic that his/her life will one day be better and that it is worth for him/her to live and see what the future will bring. In fact it is ridiculous to see a Nigerian as a suicide bomber.
    The Nigerian government irrespective of its entrenched corruption has no sympathy or tolerance for any form of religious extremist. This is an area I know they are very effective. Just last August, the Nigerian government completely extinguished a group of Islamist renegades called Boko Harram who even though denied any affiliation with Al Qaeda had a strong dislike for any form of western education. They increasingly showed a lot of and pro Al Qaeda tendencies. This Islamist group and their main leader Mohammed Yusuf were immediately executed and most of their members were killed by the Nigerian government. This link may interest you;
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePpUvfTXY7w
    I know that if Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is Nigerian as he is claiming, his village will ostracize him and his family for bringing immense shame to his people and the world at large.
    Kennedy Kelechi Halams

    Kelechi is a professor of International Business at Baker College Michigan.
     
  2. mbaonline

    mbaonline New Member

    Hmmm...

    CNN is saying that he is Nigerian and that his dad is an ex-banker, so the son is Nigerian. Nor did he have an impoverished childhood that would lead him to Al-Queda, unless this report is wrong.

    "The father, Alhaji Umar Mutallab, recently retired as chairman of First Bank PLC in Nigeria, one of the nation's premier banks. He contacted the U.S. Embassy about his fears, said the source, who lives at the family home in Kaduna in northern Nigeria." http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/12/26/airline.attack/index.html
     
  3. Tom H.

    Tom H. New Member

    Kelechi,

    Having investigated numerous Nigerians in the course of my law enforcement career (I was assigned to a fraud unit in Philadelphia for 5 years), I would like to state that it has been my experience that the Muslim Hausa-Fulani from the north of Nigeria are so culturally dissimilar to Igbo and Yoruba Nigerians that they may as well be from a separate country. Hausa are all Muslims and depending on the extremity of their adherence to Islam, may in fact not view an airline bomber as committing suicide but instead as a soldier who died in the fight to defend Islam. This is something viewed by devout Muslims as the most worthy of all causes.

    Further, in my experience Igbo and Yoruba will always identify themselves as Nigerians. They will rarely identify themselves by ethnic group unless really pressed. Hausa, by contrast, usually identify themselves as Hausa who are citizens of Nigeria. They are definitely less Westernized than other Nigerians but they are also rarely involved in the types of fraud schemes that you pointed out "Nigerians" are sometimes associated with.
     
  4. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    This story is fascinating. More interesting information is here:

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/wealthy-quiet-unassuming-the-christmas-day-bomb-suspect-1851090.html

    The 23 year old apparent terrorist reportedly has a mechanical engineering degree from the U. of London's prestigious University College London and lived in a 2-million-pound flat in a wealthy neighborhood while he was studying in the UK. A former classmate says that he was a quiet and soft-spoken student who always did the absolute minimum required to pass his classes. He was very devout and sometimes broke off working on group projects in order to pray, but showed no indication of radical sympathies or religious fanaticism.

    His 70 year old father is a former Nigerian Economics Minister who earned his own degrees in London, is former chairman of Nigeria's First Bank and still serves on the board of directors of the holding company for Nigeria's Islamic Bank. He developed suspicions about what his son was up to and reportedly contacted the US Embassy in Nigeria at least a year ago. He is reportedly "devastated" by what's happened and surprised that his son received a visa and was allowed on an airliner after his warning.

    That seemingly got the son's name added to the United States terrorist watch-list, but perhaps didn't justify placing him on the no-fly and no-visa lists. Apparently Homeland Security's National Antiterrorism Center records the names of anyone who has had significant contacts with terrorist-related groups or individuals, currently possessing about 550,000 names in its database. But it apparently also recognizes that most of those contacts were probably innocent.

    There's even a connection to Britain's murky underground education scene that we often discuss here on Degreeinfo. The newspaper story reports:

     
  5. No lie... EVERY SINGLE Nigerian that I know personally is either a Lawyer or a Law Student.
     
  6. henrinaiara

    henrinaiara member

    LOL are you serious?
     
  7. Yeah. I didn't even realize that untill this thread made me think of it.
     
  8. repplanet

    repplanet member

    We believe in what we have shown and what we have been told by the media. What's the real story no one knows, if some one knows could not tell us.

    The religion says me to always go for the truth. Let us suppose I am owner of my home. All that happens in my home is according to my wishes and my orders. If I follow the principals of God. Every thing would be fine. What if I don't follow the principals of God, every thing would going in the bad way.

    Now let us take our country as an example, our leaders are not religious. They don't follow the principals of God. How the things will be going right. It's true that we are not given the right information.

    We know that Microsoft has the monopoly in the Computer Science Market. The brand name is progressing. Like the same way Al-Qaida is now the people of terrorists because they are notorious as the terrorists.

    What is the truth? Who knows??
     
  9. Tom H.

    Tom H. New Member

    We evidently travel in very different social circles. Most Nigerians I have met originally came to the U.S. as students at the bachelor level yet I can count on one hand the number that actually finished their degree. In Philadelphia the men primarily seem drawn to work in the security industry or running a small retail store while most women work in the home or sometimes at African hair braiding salon. I have never, ever seen a Nigerian practicing law in the U.S., though my exposure is limited to the criminal courts in southeastern Pennsylvania.
     

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