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On Christmas Day 2009, the arrest of a twenty-three-year-old Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, on charges of trying to destroy a U.S. airliner with explosives tucked into his underclothes captured the world's attention. We cannot fathom the unthinkable - what if he succeeded?
Nigeria and the global community have been scrambling since to understand how one wealthy student could become so quickly radicalized and then effectively deployed as a pawn in the campaign of global terror.
We must dissect this incident, exploring its roots, the enabling network, and the systemic as well as human errors that nearly cost three -hundred innocent people their lives. We must shut down the teaching of hate and where we cannot, strip the extremists of their tools of destruction. We must make sure our enemies do not exploit our cherished freedoms. However, we must be deliberate in our search for solutions.
In order to accomplish this, we need to move beyond the immediate crisis - knowing how difficult that may be - and advance the debate on Nigeria's long-term interests.
Simplifications such as Christian versus Muslim or the North versus the South have distracted examination from what many Nigerians believe are the principal threats facing their country, namely, the disenfranchised Nigerian youth, a government that lacks competency and credibility, and a sense of hopelessness and despair about the future.
The disappearance of Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua in late 2009, without thought to orderly constitutional succession, has only further demonstrated to the Nigerian people that their country's political class puts its own interests above that of the people, thus fueling pessimism amongst the nearly 90 million Nigerians under the age of twenty-five.
Nigeria is a country of more than 150 million people, representing about half the population of the United States. One out of every five Africans is a Nigerian. It is the continent's second -largest economy and arguably its most resourceful nation. The world, particularly America, depends heavily on Nigeria for nearly...