Irony is a concept it seems our lawmakers in Nigeria have lost, their propensity to align with the herd in stampede mode just beggars belief, I am left gobsmacked in incredulity.
I have just read that the Nigerian Senate Deputy President, one Ike Ekweremadu moved to have the father of the knicker bomber given a National honour. [1]
It is like feeding malevolent code to a computer, I should expect it to crash irretrievably at the illogicality of the command issued, but maybe one should try to understand the madness of this idea.
Honoured for fatherhood
Now, Dr Umar Abdulmutallab is the father or Mr. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab [2], it is unlikely that the erudite personality with all his achievements would want to be honoured for being the father of a misguided son who was about to blow off his genitals and bring down a full laden aircraft of innocent people over a heavily populated American city.
Maybe, for instance, Dr Abdulmutallab might deign to consider it for having offered his son such privileged education in prestige institutions around the world and suddenly realising he had lost paternal contact posted a missing persons call like any concerned parent would.
Honoured for being an informant
That sounds implausible, but probably, he might be persuaded to accept such an honour for not finding ways to ground his son, but reporting his possible extremist views to the US Embassy in Nigeria but not the security agencies in Nigeria. An almost civic duty carried out with unpatriotic flair, the amazing bravery of a father telling on his son, though none of it really prevented what could have happened.
Then one could receive such a national honour for protecting ones global interests from the taint of terrorism but realising the possibility of absolution if ones son is sacrificed to the security agencies in the United States rather than trying to protect him and end up being labelled someone who aids and abets terrorism.
Honoured for celebrity
Perhaps an honour is well deserved for being the instigator by fatherhood of the man who put Nigeria on the global map of terrorism, who became the most talked about person in the world at Christmas 2009, a Nigerian par excellence, both notable and notorious.
If that all does not make sense, presumably some other countries want to honour Dr Abdulmutallab for being a rotten parent, who deigns to perform his civic duty in an unpatriotic fashion, reporting his son for extremist leanings and thereby protecting his global business interests, and so Nigeria should stupidity jump the gun and get in there first by honouring this selfless, courageous, brave and commendable heroism.
He deserves ignominy
Dr Abdulmutallab deserves no honour and really is would be atrociously contemptible for him to even consider showing up for anything talk less of an honour with regards to how his own son turned out.
At best, Dr Abdulmutallab is an almost hero but nothing he did prevented the act of terror his son almost succeeded in completing but for luck the he either fumbled his assignment or the quick acting of his fellow passengers on that almost fateful flight.
Ignominy and disgrace are the least that could be conferred on the Abdulmutallab family, at worst; they should be ignored, though I would like them all to be interrogated by the US Security services with the permission of Nigerian authorities.
The apology of our Senate leadership
There is no doubt that our senators know no irony, this act belongs to my Apes Obey Series [3] where Lord Lugard in his astute observation in the Dual Mandate confirms these traits in the leadership of the Nigerian Senate.
“an excitable person; lacking in self control, discipline, and foresight ... full of personal vanity, with little sense of veracity ... his thoughts are concentrated on the events and feelings of the moment, and he suffers little from the apprehension for the future or grief for the past ... and is conspicuously deficient in the management and control alike of men or business; he loves the display of power, but fails to realize its responsibility; ... he has ... an instinct rather than a moral virtue.”
It goes on and on but we are the poorer for it that a person of the stature of the Deputy President of the Nigerian Senate did not think through this despicable idea before submitting his motion, it is just incredible that he could not anticipate the irony of it all.
The stupidity of such a motion and the crass idiocy it confers on him was exemplified in the fact that he could only find the Senate Leader and nine other senators to support the motion, it was negatively received on the whole; but what a laughing stock it would make of Nigerians – there is no way Nigeria can be taken seriously with such people in leadership.
In my humble opinion, they do as much damage to our image as the pants bomber has done and arguably worse, they are a disgrace.
Sources
[1] Senate opposes national award to Abdulmuttalab | NIGERIAN TRIBUNE - News
[2] Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[3] Introducing the Apes Obey! Series [akin.blog-city.com]
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