The Seeds of Terror

The apparent consensus based on all we’ve seen so far in the media is that terrorism is alien to Nigeria. Nigerians are not and can never be terrorists. Our people love life so much that they can’t be suicide bombers. Umar Farouk AbdulMuttalab is an exception, a one-off incident. In fact, that his father took action to report his concerns about his son’s radicalization to the US embassy and Nigerian security agencies confirms our people’s abhorrence for terror. As usual, these arguments lack rigour. First of all, which nation of the world has terrorism or suicide bombing as an integral part of its culture? Was there a history of terrorism in Iraq before Saddam Hussein? In Palestine before 1967? In Iran, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan etc before the 1970s? Why then do we make the redundant argument that terrorism is not in our character?
The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines “ terror” as “a feeling of extreme fear”, “ terrorism” as “the use of violent action in order to achieve political aims or to force a government to act”, “terrorist” as “a person who takes part in terrorism and to “terrorize” is “to frighten and threaten people so that they will not oppose sth or will do as they are told” By these definitions, our entire political class with few exceptions can be described as terrorists! Elections in Nigeria are an act of terror!!! In order to win an election, what you need are thugs, security agencies, police men, local government officials and electoral officers. What they do is snatch ballot boxes at gun point, beat their opponents to submission, deploy hemp smoking thugs who intimidate voters and opposing party agents and similar acts of terror. Virtually all the elections we have held recently in Nigeria are by definition acts of terror.
But then let’s go to the context in which Umar Farouk Abdul Muttalab carried out his own acts of terror-religion. Is our religious life devoid of fear, extreme fear, violence, threats and intimidation? The answer is obvious, No! Nigeria in fact must have one of the highest recurrences of religious violence all over the world. It is amazing that because we continue to fool ourselves into ignoring this regular bloodletting we think the rest of the world can be persuaded to accept them as normal. Less than three weeks ago, we had religious violence in Bauchi in which over thirty people died. The Boko Haram crisis led to the slaughter of over one thousand people. In Jos a few years ago, hundreds or perhaps more were killed. In Kaduna where Mutallab grew up, religious violence is intermittent. Why do we ignore these occurrences? If we do fool ourselves, why do we expect the rest of the civilized world to acquiesce in our self-deceit?
In my view, there are three elements required for acts of terror to happen. One, you must feel hatred or at least some extreme prejudice against the victim or his group. This prejudice may be founded in ethnic, religious, sectarian, communal, or other differences, or even social, political or historical grudges. Two, there must be a willingness to deploy violence to achieve your objectives relative to the group against which the hatred or prejudice is held. Finally the perpetrator of terror must be able to rationalize or justify the fate he inflicts or intends to inflict on the victim based on some notions of retribution or vengeance, or derived from some religious doctrine or nationalist, ethnic, communal or sectarian sentiment. All these elements are abundant in Nigerian public life. This explains our regular bouts of violence between cattle rearers and villagers, between neighboring communities (Ogoni/Andoni; Ife/Modakeke; Tiv/Jukun); that is why the killers of Gideon Akaluka and Grace Ushang felt justified; that is why Isioma Daniel has fled Nigeria never to return; that is why many Southern families have fled Northern Nigeria; that is why we have frequent cases of communities erupting in violence and burning their traditional rulers palaces, police stations or other symbols associated with the “ enemies”. In short, Nigerians frequently deploy violence to settle otherwise normal social, political, religious and even economic disputes.
The argument that Nigerians intrinsically love life and will never embrace suicide bombing also lacks rigour. How many “almajiris” have died in religious violence in Northern Nigeria over the past 30 years? When these children confront the army and police and die in their hundreds, does that indicate a group of people who love their lives? Did the Boko Haram, Maitatsine and recent Kala Kato religious warriors love their lives? The only difference in this case is that the perpetrator needed a US visa and therefore could not be one of the usual almajiris, but a son of privilege. Which brings me to the senior Muttalab. In my view, his actions are consistent with those of a father who simply did not want his son to die. How did the senior Muttalab feel when ever there was religious violence in Northern Nigeria and hundreds of bodies of almajiris and their usual Southern victims littered the streets? Did he worry about this senseless carnage? Whenever he heard about a suicide bombing in the Arab world carried out in the name of Islam, did he feel compelled to protest? When Nigerians Muslims rejoiced on the streets of Kano on September 11, 2001, did Alhaji Muttalab complain?