STEVE INSKEEP, host:
The attempted airplane bombing on Christmas Day also cast attention on Nigeria. American authorities imposed new security measures on travelers from 14 nations, including Nigeria. Those travelers now face full body searches, among other things.
Extra security may seem automatic, since the suspect is Nigerian, but Nigerians who had nothing to do with this attack are furious. News headlines in the West African nation suggest they're being treated like lepers.
The minister of information there is Dora Akunyili.
Ms. DORA AKUNYILI (Minister of Information, Nigeria): If extra scrutiny would be given to travelers from all over the world, that's fine. But when some few countries are singled out, and Nigeria is one of those few countries, then it becomes very painful to us, especially when we know that we in this country, we don't have terrorist tendency. And we feel that this is unfair and discriminatory.
The population of over 150 million people, we are being defined by the behavior of one person. And we know that this child was influenced from outside this country. He spent almost all his life outside this country - his secondary school in Togo, his university in London, and he's a post-graduate in Dubai, from where he went to Yemen to study Quran for a few weeks. And there from there, he decided to stay back. He said he was going to spend another seven years. And the father was against it.
The father reported this young man. I mean, it's enough evidence to show that Nigerians are indeed good people. How many fathers will report their children?
I can easily remember in 2001, we had a British shoe bomber. When he was caught, his country was not stigmatized. It was clear to the world that this was one human being acting on his own. So we would have loved to be treated the same way.
INSKEEP: You said that there is no terrorist tendencies inside Nigeria, but there have been conflicts involving Islamist groups. And there is some concern -among experts, anyway - about al-Qaida efforts to recruit inside Nigeria. How would you describe Nigeria's problem with extremism, if any?
Ms. AKUNYILI: If al-Qaida could recruit in Nigeria, why did Mutallab need to go outside the country to get recruited? We don't have al-Qaida in Nigeria. We don't have people that would indulge in terrorists, in any form of suicide bombing. It's not in our culture. It's not in us. It's not part of our system.
Which terrorist group are you referring to? We don't have any terrorist group. Once in a while, not too often, we have religious conflict, which has died down. It has not happened for quite some time now. Yes, where I accept it has happened in the past, but that's not terrorism. That is conflict.
INSKEEP: If I opened a Nigerian newspaper, turned on a Nigerian television, turned on the radio in Nigeria, is this the main thing that people are talking about, this distinction the United States has given you?
Ms. AKUNYILI: Oh, yes. If you go to the streets in Nigeria - you can ask your correspondent to do that - she would tell you that everybody is feeling very, very sad. Because Nigerians travel a lot, and when you are discriminated against in the airport, it can be very humiliating.
INSKEEP: That's Dora Akunyili, Nigeria's information minister.