NigeriansTalk

Cross-posted here

And so today after a lot of soul search­ing and repen­tance of past sins of unpa­tri­o­tism, I am back with a new list of bumper stick­ers. This time, they will be nice and polit­i­cally cor­rect, for those who like to see the good and the pos­i­tive. Now you have no more excuses for not mak­ing them up as ban­ners or stick­ers and putting them on your cars, mugs, shirts, doors and fridges.

The cur­rent news, as dumb as it is is that Nige­ri­ans, along with other nation­als “of inter­est” will now be sub­ject to more more enhanced searches at air­ports. It’s dumb not only because it attacks the symp­toms of a dis­ease and not the dis­eases itself while cast­ing the “doc­tor” in a very bad light in the sight of his patients and col­leagues, but because it also seeks to cre­ate more ene­mies — or at least, less friends, inad­ver­tently. The fact of the mat­ter is that “enhanced” air­port searches have never solved any prob­lems. Never ever. It only humil­i­ates the guests, and breeds mutual sus­pi­cion. Before this Decem­ber inci­dent, every pas­sen­ger on Amer­i­can planes have had to remove their shoes, belts and jack­ets before board­ing. The ter­ror­ist got wise up and took to using the under­wear. If we’re asked to remove our under­wears at air­ports now, the per­son deter­mined to cause havok will sim­ply think of new means to do so. What’s more, Nige­ria has never been a state spon­sor of ter­ror­ism, so what’s the point? If I were an Al-Qaeda strate­gist, I would be think­ing like this today: this would be a very good time to shift atten­tion off of Nige­ria, Yemen and Pak­istan to other poor coun­tries of the world where we can recruit impres­sion­able kids like Umar Mut­ta­lab for our next attack. Thank­fully the new TSA require­ments in the US does not include full body searches for those other coun­tries at the moment. With any chance, we’ll get this one through, and take a few thou­sand lives. Duh! Why am I the only one think­ing out of the box? Is it just because I’m from Nige­ria, or because it’s true?

Now here are the bumper stick­ers you should see:

• I am a Niger­ian. I have words for “kill”, “maim” and “slaugh­ter” in my local lan­guages, but none for “ter­ror­ism” and “ter­ror­ist”, and none for “snow”. What does that tell you?
• I’m a Niger­ian, one of the hap­pi­est peo­ple in the world. Going to heaven now is the least of my aspirations.
• I’m a Niger­ian. I do not need to make a point with my life when Jesus has already done so.
• I am a Niger­ian. Amer­ica needs not be afraid of me. I’m still try­ing to get her visa. (Thanks Yemi)
• I’m a Niger­ian and not a ter­ror­ist. I have other things to worry about.
• I’m a Niger­ian. If I can’t lay down my life for my coun­try, why would I give it up for your mil­i­tant God?

… among many oth­ers that, again, we can make up as we go along.

But the bumper stick­ers prob­a­bly won’t make sense right now that in another dumb devel­op­ment, the country’s elected rep­re­sen­ta­tives have resolved to sever ties with the United States unless it takes the country’s name off the list of the United States’ top secu­rity watch list. What? They even gave an ulti­ma­tum. Talk of mis­placed pri­or­i­ties. Talk of silli­ness in top gov­ern­ment cir­cles. Talk of pour­ing scarce fuel on an already open but unwanted fire. What­ever hap­pened to silent, common-sense, under­ground diplo­macy? Now, more than the Mutal­lab inci­dent on Christ­mas day, this is one news item that makes me ashamed, not of my coun­try, but of its leaders/rulers. And this comes just when I thought I could be opti­mistic for once. Shame!