It's not the best of times for Nigeria. At best, it is at a crossroads. From a sick but recalcitrant President and most of his retinue of aides to a biting fuel scarcity and Shylock black marketers who smile to the banks at the expense of the masses, to the listing of Nigeria among United States watch list, a nation can't be in a lousier situation than we have been for sometime now. But thank God the National Assembly has come to the rescue.

Instructively, perhaps, nothing set the country up for a bad start as the Farouk Mutallab saga. It reverberated from one end of the world to the other, drawing a deserved ire and condemnation, doing more damage to our already image deficit. Now every Nigerian, just for the singular "crime" of being a Nigerian, must be dissected, naked, at international airports around the world, especially if he is US-bound. That is a typical case of one oily finger soiling the rest.

It is however noteworthy that the measure we are receiving over the Mutallab wahala is the portion of a people whenever they fail to do what they are supposed to do and do things they aren't supposed to do. After all, we can be sure US would not have swiftly listed South Africa or Ghana on terror watch list if their national was involved. In fact, Farouk started his journey from Ghana and passed through the Netherlands; yet, to the US, these nationals are among the saints. But while the world hates and derides us, we even do worse to ourselves. We have dressed ourselves in a rat's clothing. So, who would blame the big cat called US for coming after us? Yes, we have left our farms unweeded, and the serpents of reproach and insults have taken over.

The debates around whether or not Alhaji Mutallab, Farouk's father deserves a national award tells it all. It is unavoidable to identify him as father of the bomber. But how else would the world now identify him most easily? How many people around the world know or now remember that this gentleman was once a former Minister (Secretary) in the Federal Cabinet of Nigeria when such Office conferred a lot of respect on the occupier. How many now remember that he is an immediate past Chairman of one of our foremost banks and a peaceable Muslim? But can we sincerely begrudge the world when we, his fellow countrymen and women, seem to have forgotten, hence the debates that have trailed the Deputy Senate President's motion that a national honour be conferred on the man?

Apart from a write-up posted on a Nigerian online community website by one of our many never-come-home siblings in the Diaspora whose main preoccupation and contributions to nation-building is armchair criticisms, I also read a letter to the editor of one the newspapers. The writer contended that it was dishonourable and frivolous to have called for a national honour on Alhaji Mutallab and that "In a country where truth is a scarce commodity, it becomes a thing to applaud when someone tells the truth to save his own neck and that of his members." That is a grievous point of misjudgement.

The truth is if there was anybody who tried to prevent the December 25 incident, it was Mutallab the father. He gave out a very vital information- painful as it were- that his son (not his neighbour's son, for God's sake!) may have fallen into the hands of religious extremists. That information, from all good sense of reasoning, could not just have been to save his neck and that of his family.

And even if indeed that was his purpose, it doesn't obliterate the fact that his action mitigated our embarrassment in no small measure. To talk down on Ekweremadu's prayer for the conferment of a national honour on Alhaji Mutallab translates to a grievous underestimation of the import of his action. Look at it this way: Alhaji Mutallab informed the US Embassy and Nigerian security authorities he was no longer comfortable with his son's extreme views and ways, but it apparently fell on deaf ears or the concerned authorities in US and Nigeria underestimated it. Again, President Obama admitted his people failed on that one, but it did not stop him from listing Nigeria on the US terror watch list alongside notorious states like Somalia, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc. Is it not reasonable to conclude that but for that proactive action, we would have been listed among States Sponsoring Terrorism (by US standards) such as Cuba, Iran, Syria, etc and also faced graver international sanctions and dispositions?

But I have another idea. If we must agree with the opinion that someone who did the right thing does not deserve a national honour, then let us award it to those who failed in their duties. Let us honour Obama for putting us on terror watch list even though he admitted his country failed in that instance. Let us honour the US security agencies for failing to share and act on intelligence as was admitted by Obama. Let us give it to the US Embassy here and the US Immigration for not withdrawing Farouk's visa pending full investigation into his father's warning. Let us award it to most Nigerian parents who would have regarded giving away such information as driving a deadly nail against their son's future. Let us even give it to all those who have mismanaged Nigeria and her educational system for ages forcing parents who can afford it to scatter their children overseas, away from parental guide and watch, in search of quality education. In fact, let us even reassemble Obasanjo's host of former cooks and stewards in his Villa days that received national honours in 2006 and upgrade their awards. For all we care, Mutallab and Senator Ike Ekweremadu can go to Jos, Borno or Bauchi if they feel so Boko-harassed.

Uduak wrote from Abuja.