By Chinyere Amalu

ABUJA—The Russian government has blamed security failure for the attempted bombing of an American plane by Abdulfaruk Mutallab, even as it condemned the action taken by the US to punish the entire country.
This came on a day  the United States Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Jane Holl Lute, visited Abuja, soliciting for support from Nigerians.

Briefing newsmen yesterday in Abuja on the need for Nigeria and Russia to strengthen their bilateral relations and commence implementations of the agreement entered into by both countries in several areas, the Russian Ambassador to Nigeria, Alexander Polyakov, said he had no right to comment on what was going on between Nigeria and America, but insisted that security should be strengthened at the airport in the interest of all.

He said: “I am not in favour of the general approach taken by the American government over the incident.   If you have a problem with an individual, you should tackle it with the person. He is a Nigerian but he was not trained in Nigeria and from all indications, the young man has totally lost connection with his family.

“It is not the problem of all Nigerians, but security problem. If they take a decision to strengthen  airport security, I support it but it should not be in an indiscriminate way.”

The Russian Ambassador also pointed out that his government was satisfied with the result of the bilateral relations with Nigeria, adding that the trade volume between both amounted to $1.5 billion last year.

He also noted that he had received all the papers giving ownership to the plots allocated to Russian Embassy from the Nigerian government, and disclosed that the construction would gulp no less than $12 million.

“In 2008, we achieved a record close to $300, but according to Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, it is over $1.5 billion. This is because CBN takes records of indirect trades, but we take only direct trades, so we accepted the CBN figure.

“Also we have satisfied all the requirements from Nigerian government to start the construction of the permanent site of our embassy and residence and in order to expedite actions, we have done the drawings and it will cost us not less than $12 million.”