Rewriting Abdulmutallab: A Crisis Management Guide in National Development

Abstract

This paper centers on the situation in Nigeria resulting from the President’s vacation of office in 2009 and the implications of this on the country’s foreign policy operations at a time a young Nigerian male had been arrested for attempting to blowup an American passenger airline on Christmas day. A public interview granted by Nigeria’s then Foreign Affairs Minister on the BBC’s HARDtalk themed on these issues and a Press Conference hurriedly arranged at the Minister’s behest at the UN’s Headquarters in New York a day later form the core of the paper’s critique which draws on relevant theoretical perspectives.

Keywords: Abdulmutallab, terrorism, crisis management, political communication