By Bose Adebayo

The United States government has been advised to delist Nigeria from its list of “countries of interest”because of the isolated case of a Nigerian, Farouk Mutallab, who was caught in an attempt to bomb a US plane on Christmas day.

Association of National Honours Awardees, ANHA, gave this advice yesterday in Lagos, adding that “Nigerians are widely known as the happiest people on earth and terrorism is not in our character.”

Spokesman/Secretary of the Association, Dr Ausbeth Ajagu, while delivering the communique at the end of the group’s meeting, also said the Association supported the Federal Government’s amnesty programme, but urged that it be seen through, so that the repentant militants would find it easy to reintegrate into the society.

Also speaking at the event, the Association’s President, Asiwaju Alexander Sokan, said the Association was in support of things that would unite Nigerians and dissociated itself from things that would destroy the unity of the country, no matter what it might be.

On President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Sokan said  healing belonged to God and the Association had joined other Nigerians to wish him speedy recovery, but “we must obey the Constitution regarding the vacuum created by Yar’Adua’s absence so that the country could move forward.”