"Train Up Your Child In The Way He Should Go..."

"Train up your child in the way he should go..."

Born on the 25th of December, 1986 as the youngest of 16 children of one of the richest men in Africa and the prominent former Chairman of First Bank of Nigeria and former Nigerian Federal Commissioner for Economic Development. His Nigerian mother, is the second of his father's two wives. 

He was raised initially in an affluent neighborhood of Kaduna, in the northern part of Nigeria, and at the family home in Nairobi, Kenya. As a young boy he attended the Essence International School in Kaduna, as well as classes at the Rabiatu Mutallib Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, which is named after his grandfather. As a child he enjoyed playing Play Station and basketball, but as he grew older he abandoned such pursuits in favour of striving to be more devoutly Islamic. According to one of his cousins, he condemned his father's banking profession as "immoral" and "un-Islamic" for charging interest, urging him to quit.

His formative years were characterised by his more independent thinking, values, ideals, attitude and disposition, influenced chiefly by having to school in distant countries beyond the needed parental attention. He had his high school in Togo, a west Africa country. Between 2004 and 2005  academic year, he studied at the San'a Institute for the Arabic Language in Sana'a, Yemen, and attended lectures at Iman University.

The long months that he spent away from parental grooming began to take a negative toll on him as he was hugely being influenced by the perspectives he cross-pollinated with in the different countries where he schooled as he grew up. This also found expression in many of his online postings between 2005 and 2007. Expressing loneliness, struggles with sexual thoughts and his many futile battles to control them.

University College London.

At University College London in September 2005, he began studying Engineering and Business Finance, and earned a degree in mechanical engineering in June 2008 still away from proper parental grooming, thereby affording him the liberty to grow in the way he thought best. Between January 2009 and July 2009, he attended a master's of international business degree program at University of Wollongong in Dubai. After his father consented to his request, he returned to the San'a Institute for the Arabic Language in Yemen to study Arabic, between August 2009 to December 2009. In the cause of all these trips in the guise of going for studies this boy had started rendezvousing with extremists and had been initiated into terrorism.

Northwest Airlines Flight 253 en route to Detroit.

On Christmas Day 2009, he traveled from Ghana to Amsterdam, where he boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253 en route to Detroit. 20 minutes after this flight had been in the air, his attempt to blow up the aircraft with a deadly explosive which he concealed in his underwear was thankfully foiled.

Today, having been charged on December 26, 2009, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, with two criminal counts: attempting to blow up and placing a destructive device on a U.S. civil aircraft.  Additional charges were added in a grand jury indictment on January 6, 2010, including attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted murder of 289 people. He is incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution, Milan, Michigan, while awaiting further legal proceedings.  If he is convicted on the charges, he will face a life sentence plus 90 years in prison.          

By now you might have guessed the identity of the boy I have been X-raying his unfortunate life of parental neglect. I am talking about Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the one popularly referred to as the "underwear bomber".

That ancient wisdom instructed that we should : "Train up a child in the way he should go, when he grows up, he will not depart from it..." I am of the strong opinion that most of the juvenile deliquences that is ripping our society apart globally today is due to child grooming neglect. It is sad to realise that the focus of most of we parents have sadly shifted from our primary responsibility of "training up our children in the way they should go". Many of us make up the excuse of the need to be out there to find 'the daily bread' by which the family needs to get by. While I don't entirely disagree with that, however there is a place for fending for the children and another for being around to groom them into the proper children they should be tomorrow. We as parents, or aspiring parents need to realise that making all the money or material comfort we can garner, available for our children is not the only provision required to raise well groomed children. Our making out time to be around them, to instruct them, correct them, guide them, share moments with them, share their innermost thoughts or feelings, pray with them, play with them and more, go a long way to raising well groomed children who will not put us to shame 'tomorrow'.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (Underwear bomber).

Today, the sad story of Umar Farouk Adbulmutallab is that of one of millions out there ( who have been victims of child grooming neglect) whose reckless acts has ultimately brought shame to their parents, families and in Abdulmutallab's case, our country. I believe you have perhaps not forgotten in a hurry the humiliating pants down checks that Nigerians traveling to America in the wake of that incident 2 years ago were subjected to at the airports? Not to talk of the fact that Nigeria alongside some other 13 countries around the world were branded as terrorist countries by United States of America. Do you know what dent that impressed on our national image in the comity of nations, do you know its ripple effect on our economy, foreign investments etc.? The consequences are far reaching my friend.

You and I don't want to imagine the emotional agony that Alhaji Umar Abdulmutallab (Umar's father) , Hajiya Aisha Abdulmutallab (Umar's mother) and the entire Abudulmutallab family must have been going through since their son was charged and incarcerated at Federal Correctional Institution, Milan, Michigan, USA last year. Now if he is convicted on the charges, he will face a life sentence plus 90 years in prison. All because his parents failed in their parental responsibility of "training up their child in the way he should go..."
This family will lose their son for life if convicted. How can we imagine a parent living with that for life? May we not lose our children. That Yoruba adage ( of the people from the western part of Nigeria) couldn't have been better put: "The child we do not train today, is the one that will squander tomorrow the wealth we accrue." We can avert tomorrow, the squandering of what we are 'sweating' to accrue today, by simply "training up our children in the way they should go...."