More on Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab

When news of yesterday’s terrorist incident over Detroit emerged, the wire services at first reported that the suspect, Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab of Nigeria, had been on the no-fly list, and should never have been allowed on the plane. Later news stories retracted that assertion, maintaining only that Mr. Abdulmutallab had been listed in Homeland Security’s “potential terrorists” database.

No we know why young Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab was listed as a potential terrorist (or should have been): his daddy warned us about him six months ago.

Here’s the story from Spits Nieuws, translated from the Dutch by our Flemish correspondent VH:

Nigerian is son of ex-minister

The 23-year-old Nigerian who yesterday attempted to commit a terrorist attack on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit is from a wealthy family. He is even the son of a former minister of Nigeria.

This month the prominent 70-year-old businessman Alhaji Umaru Mutallab quit his position as director of First Bank of Nigeria, Nigeria’s oldest bank. He criticized his son, who had become ever more extremist. The father, according to the family, is devastated by the news of the failed terrorist attack by his son.

Six months ago the father informed the U.S. embassy in his country about the activities of his son. It is now being investigated why the 23-year-old man had never been placed on a black list.

The accused had had extreme views on religion since his high school years.

The father, Alhaji Umaru Abdul Mutallab, played a major role in introducing Islamic banking into Nigeria:
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Umaru Mutallab [former Federal Minister, and Executive Chairman & Managing Director of United Bank for Africa (UBA)] was born in 1939 in Katsina. He is a former Federal Commissioner of Economic Development (1975) and also of Cooperation and Supply (1976).Umaru Mutallab recently played a major role in introducing Islamic banking into Nigeria. He was an executive director of First Bank and later became its Chairman, a position he holds till now.

Note: “Alhaji” is not the first name of the elder Mutallab, but rather an honorific, signifying that he has complete the Hajj (pilgrimage) to Mecca. To make the names even more confusing, the younger Mutallab seems to have affixed his father’s middle name to his surname, to create the new surname Abdulmutallab. Furthermore, at other times he has listed “Abdul” separately, moved his middle name around and added “Umar” as a new middle name, so that he is listed as “Farouk Umar Abdul Mutallab” in some news stories.

Which makes this “Mutallab” listed in the Nigerian Air Force Military School Jos Alumni Members Database very intriguing:

316 89/1161 ABDUL UMAR MUTALLAB

Is it the same guy? Your guess is as good as mine, but he has three of the four available names, arranged in yet another order.