Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, with his misguided and deplorable attempt to blow up an airline on Christmas Day in the US, launched all 140 million Nigerians onto the world stage to be scrutinized once again for yet another socially unacceptable behavior.

That Nigeria has a bad image on the world stage is no longer news. Before him, the 419 generation of swindlers had managed to earn us the embarrassing label of the Mecca of the world’s scams. Then there is our unfortunate political evolution that has entrenched corruption and misgovernment as synonymous with Nigeria.

The sickening display of ill-gotten wealth by military dictators and supposedly democratic politicians further confirmed us as a nation of questionable values. Add in the militancy in the Niger Delta, the ongoing religious crisis, and serious bribery scandals spanning three continents and a few mega-conglomerates and you could safely conclude that the Nigerian nation is a safe haven for all anti-social behaviour.

Surprisingly, however, such a conclusion could not be further from the truth. Despite the seemingly endless list of criminal and antisocial characteristics of Nigerians, one of the most definable traits of a Nigerian is a passionate love of life. This trait transcends ethnic, religious and cultural divisions and it can be safely assumed that it is written in the DNA of Nigeria.

By nature, a Nigerian abhors death because our cultural orientation presents death as a defeat of fates. If a Nigerian dies under the age of 70, it is a family and community tragedy. Young deaths are believed to be premature, and therefore a stigma that could affect a family’s status like other families prevents any relational interaction with those who lose their members prematurely.

The Nigerian by nature does not commit suicide. It is immediately concluded that suicidal tendencies are demonic or extraterrestrial influences on such people. Suicide is not a psychological imbalance for Nigerian society. It is a satanic oppression that is fought with prayers and other spiritual antidotes.

Depression is not a state of mind in the Nigerian context. It is a spiritual attack that only God can defeat; not antidepressants. A Nigerian who attempts or commits suicide stigmatizes his family and generations for life. Nigerians do not marry into a family with a case of suicide or mental depression, as it is assumed that the tendency could be hereditary.

So as the world tries to unravel the Farouk Abdulmutallab phenomenon, it would do well to look for his motive in everything else but his Nigerian lineage. He just didn’t come from there because he doesn’t exist there.

It would also be a mistake to profile the Nigerian according to terrorist parameters, as it would be a sad waste of time and resources, as the Nigerian lacks the moral fiber to hold ideological or religious beliefs at the expense of his life.

Simply put, the Nigerian could cause harm to others as long as it doesn’t affect him or his family, but blowing up a plane with him as one of the victims is definitely not Nigerian.

The Nigerian’s aggression only goes as far as his life is not threatened. The moment any resistance or activity becomes life-threatening, the Nigerian backs off and would rather live with injustice than lose his life.

This is what is responsible for the continuing oppression of the masses by the political class. Politicians know this trait and capitalize on it to continue clinging to power through corruption, electoral fraud, and bad governance. If the Nigerian valued life a little less, perhaps a sustained resistance would have freed us from the incessant politicians whose main objective is to plunder the treasure, but the passion for life of the Nigerian has become his stumbling block for progress, since prefers to live in oppression. to die for principles.

This is why Farouk Abdulmutallab may be Nigerian by birth but he is definitely not Nigerian by orientation.

Nigerian culture has a high social and communal guarantee. In Nigeria, no man is an island. It is absolutely essential for the Nigerian to be accepted within his social circle. This need for acceptance is the primary motivation for scams and criminal activity. The influence of peer status is very strong in the average Nigerian mind. If a peer is rich, there is an unspoken pressure on their contemporaries to rise to the challenge; hence the tendency to cheat, steal, or swindle in order to gain social status and acceptance.

On the contrary, it is this very social guarantee that keeps most Nigerians morally upright, as it is a stigma for you or your children to be morally corrupt. That is what prompted Umar Farouk’s father to be proactive in reporting his son’s questionable lifestyle even before he did anything wrong.

Even the obviously corrupt go to great lengths to hide their real activity, hence the tendency to have undercover businesses or live abroad and only return home sparingly so that no one can monitor their activities.

The Nigerian spirit is one of resilience, not revolution. The Nigerian spirit is one of self-preservation and not sacrifice. It is the trait that condemns us to our current state of underdevelopment despite the abundance of resources. Nigerians do not sacrifice anything for a common good or goal, especially our lives. No Nigerian runs to his death in ideological oblivion. He is not in our character.

The natural appearance of so-called ‘experts’ on the world stage claiming to understand and profile Nigerians due to Abdulmutallab’s failed terrorism attempt could prompt the world to chase shadows like Bush misled Americans to chase non-existent weapons of mass destruction in Iraq . Searching for an Al-Qaeda base in Nigeria will be an exercise in futility as the cultural environment is too hostile to their ideological motivation.

Therefore, the world would do well to concentrate its efforts to defeat terrorism on citizens with enough moral fiber to have enough ideological views to die for it.

Nigerians do not die for anything or anyone. If the Lord Jesus Christ were a Nigerian, the world would never be saved from sin.

Nigerians would rather live than die for anything. The less than one percent with questionable character may find clever ways to defraud the world, but even they want to live to enjoy their loot.

Simply put, Farouk Abdulmutallab does not represent the spirit of Nigeria because Nigerians do not die for anything.