NIGERIAN authorities must stand up against the American posture of trying to label us a country of terrorists after the Christmas Day incident in which 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab tried to blow up a passenger aircraft as it was landing in Detroit.
Details of the case as they evolve have not shown any complicity on the part of Nigerian authorities or security lapses at the Murtala Muhammed Airport from which Mutallab’s flight originated.

Nigerians should be proud of the thorough security checks at the Lagos international airport. There is documented evidence that the young Mutallab went through them. The security equipment at our international airports passed American examination as part of requirements for direct flights from Nigeria to the US.

More importantly, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, Farouk’s father, weeks before the incident, reported to security agencies in Nigeria and the US about the family’s concerns over Farouk. The older Mutallab thought the son could be leaning toward extremist views.

Few fathers, not even in the US, would have gone to this extent to alert security agencies about suspicions of a family member. The embarrassing fact is that American security agencies ignored the information. They want to export the blames.

As is their usual practice, American agencies find it convenient to blame others for everything. If they had taken the concerns on Farouk serious, the incident could have been avoided. Their first reaction was to heap the blames on Nigerians and they carried on as if the attack had the support of all Nigerians.

Our country of more than 140 million people is maligned endlessly each time an infraction involves one of us. Without supporting Farouk’s activities, it must be said that Nigerians (his father is one) did their best in this instance, as in many other instances.

Alhaji Mutallab should be praised for his effort to make the world safer. That those who should have acted on his information  ignored it, is not entirely his problem, except that it has landed his son in trouble and by extension his family.

“There was a mixture of human and systemic failures that contributed to this potential catastrophic breach of security,” US President Barack Obama admitted after the incident. “Our government has not acted as it should. A systemic failure occurred and I consider this unacceptable.”

American agencies should like President Obama own up to the defects in their system. They tend to be all-knowing and racist in their action. Had the information from Alhaji Mutallab come from elsewhere, they may have acted differently.

Americans throw their importance around enough that at some airports in Europe, those bearing American passports do not go through checks.

There are no bases for harassing Nigerians following this incident. We are not terrorists. It is unacceptable for us to be treated as if we are.