On January 1, 2011 while the world was celebrating the New Year, 21 people lay dead while 97 other others survived with various degrees of injuries when terrorists, using a car bomb, hit an Orthodox Church in Alexandria, Egypt. This was during the Presidency of Hosni Mubarak. Following that incident, the year 2011 recorded several other bomb attacks by terrorists belonging to al-Qaeda and other such groups.
Those bombings re-shaped the year 2011. By the end of the year, more than 2000 persons had died in terrorist bombs in Egypt, Afghanistan, Colombia, Chechnya, Turkey, Israel, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, India, Russia, Ukraine, Yemen, Algeria, Canada, Italy, Belgium, China, Philippines, Kenya, Norway, Angola, Guinea and Nigeria. People became more conscious of the reality of suicide bombers, car bombers, knife attacks, outright shooting etc in their societies.
While such attacks in troubled countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Colombia etc were understood as the effect of an ongoing war, those on other relatively peaceful countries like Nigeria, the United States of America, Britain, Italy, Norway etc were viewed with worried lenses. Those who reviewed the reality of terrorist attacks concluded that they have become the new challenge of the 21st century. Analysts also called for greater caution in tackling such reality.
Perhaps, the biggest terrorist statement on the world was the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in the United States of America which left 2,977 persons dead. That attack raised the consciousness of the world that terrorism no longer had borders. While the world was shocked at the magnitude of the attack and the audacity of the terrorists, the fact that everyone had become vulnerable to terrorism was not lost. As the world mourned and condemned the attack, terrorists compromised the United Kingdom hitting its subways with fatalities. For some time, it was argued that terror attacks on the USA and UK were outcome of their involvements in Middle East politics.
If that was indeed the case, what was the crime against China, which had remained relatively silent about Middle East affairs, until lately? Incidences of recent terrorist attacks on China are recorded in this order- 1992 Urumqi bombings (1992), Ürümqi bus bombings (1997), Aksu bombing (2010), Hotan attack (2011), Kashgar attacks (2011) and another Ürümqi attack (2014). The 2014 Kunming attack left more than 100 persons dead with hundred others injured.
The July shooting down of a Malaysian MH17 Flight over Ukraine, which killed 298 persons, is already looked at, not as an accident, but a terrorist action. Simply put, therefore; from the North Pole down to the south end of the world, terrorists have left a trail of blood and tears.
They have decimated lives and brought dreams to abrupt end. In some cases, not even the remains of their victims were found for proper and honourable burial.
All these paint a picture of a world which narrative is being retold by elements that have lost out in reasonable bargain. It is believed that no one with superior argument would seek to use bombs, guns and knives to force his views. But the interesting thing about terrorists attacks round the world is that more than 80 percent of such attacks have had religious colouration. Here, Nigeria’s experience in terrorist activities is not different. Where Nigeria’s case become rather different, and worrisome to many observers and analysts, is the constant call on the country’s president to throw in the towel, each time a terror attack succeeds (another form of terrorism). Nowhere else in the world do citizens, and residents, ask the country’s leadership to quit on account of a terrorist attack.
Reference 9/11 twin attacks on the USA. Rather than blame the government of President George W. Bush, citizens of the country rallied round their country and its president. They gave him the support needed to “smoke out the terrorists” from the mountains of Tera Bora in Afghanistan. That massive support, expressed by a deafening outpouring of emotion in heronizing the victims, more or less, led to the 10-year chase for Osama bin Laden, which culminated in his elimination under barrack Obama’s watch.
During this time, Americans did not see Bush as a republican. Other leaders in that country did not see themselves as either Republican or Democrat. They all united behind a cause—to win their country back from terrorists and overcome fear.
In Britain, same level of patriotic zeal was expressed. It has been same all over the world except Nigeria. Perhaps, it is only in Nigeria that citizens laud terrorists as being super strong and ask their President to quit. This never happened even in Colombia where the government engaged FARC rebels for over 50 years, despite the modus operandi of the rebels, which included midnight raid on villages, hostage taking, forced child-rebels, occasional bombings, hijack etc. Despite these, Colombians did not castigate, abuse or denigrate their state for ‘inability’ to snuff life out of the FARC rebels. Rather, they showed more understanding, stood behind their government and their leaders till the ‘war’ was worn.
In Iraq, the ISIS rebels have captured oil installations, water dam (with a threat of flooding the country) and sacked every Christian element in Mosul. In other words, Mosul has fallen to them and they are advancing in ferocious fanaticism aiming to capture Baghdad. Yet, Iraqis aren’t calling for the head of their President or asking his government to resign. In Nigeria, government pushed back Boko Haram which had ‘captured’ two local governments in Borno state (as at February 2014) and hoisted their flags as replacement for Nigeria’s flag, yet, it seems like no major achievement to some.
That is the trend. And that is the way to go.
But not exactly for Nigeria. I write this looking at an advertorial in a national newspaper of last Sunday, Aug. 3, 2014 wherein the advert sponsor, one Movement for New Nigeria, sought to incite Nigerians against their government, which they freely elected to lead them at the last general election. The advert sponsor made dramatic allusions, suggesting that the reality of terror attacks on Nigeria was because PDP is government at the center. The group, faceless or real, also suggested that the incumbent President was incapable of stemming the tide of terror attacks in the country without actually relaying the dynamics of terror to his audience.
Sadly, Nigerians are being made to think, and believe, using warped narratives, that President Goodluck Jonathan was the architect of terror in their country. Those selling this misleading narrative forgot that in the midst of such terror actions, USA had a presidential election which brought in Obama; China also had an election which brought Xi Jinping and that even a totally dysfunctional state like Syria, with a three-year old civil war, still was able to hold an election which gave Al-Assad another seven-year tenure. Also, even in the midst of a meaningless war, Sudan was still able to go for a referendum that gave birth to South Sudan.
The lie that most Nigerians have been fed so far is that PDP has failed in taming terror. But ask; how come those telling this sort of narrative always want Nigerians to remember that Jonathan is not fighting terror the way it should be (their way), but don’t ever want Nigerians to recall that prior to the 2011 general elections, some notable voices in a particular section of the country were vehemently categorical in their promise to make Nigeria ungovernable if a Jonathan won the presidential election? How come same narrators want us all to forget that another veteran presidential candidate, in his quest to become president -at all cost- told Nigerians that those who refuse him becoming president will not know peace when he reminded that “those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable”? Is it also an oversight that the same persons who want us all to look at PDP as harbingers of terror, refuse to remind us of yet another presidential candidate’s call on northerners to use all they can lay hands on to protect their votes?
But, must anyone with workable solution to the Boko Haram challenge wait till he or she becomes president to execute same? If it will take such a person the next 50 years to achieve the ambition, would it mean that he will wait till all is dead before Boko Haram is stopped? See the patriotism of those who want to lead us? In other words, they say to us, we have the means to stop Boko Haram but won’t do it until you make us president? So, should the office of President of the Federal Republic be traded for Boko Haram? As had been said, patriotism entails working for common good. Not selfish ambition. Those who think that nothing good would come Nigeria’s way unless they become president better realise that no nation ever stopped on the ambition of one man.
Therefore, the Movement for New Nigeria, as far as I am concerned, no longer have questions to answer; having painstakingly chosen those headlines as topic for a campaign against PDP and President Jonathan. With that, they do now confirm to all sceptics, and openly too, that Boko Haram was created to destabilise Nigeria, demonise PDP, distract and weaken President Jonathan? They also suggest that Boko Haram was created as a tool for political office bargain? Also, they confirm, in no hidden terms, that those who seek to rule Nigeria seek so only on a platform of violence, as they had promised. In no country with terrorist realities, has it been so openly confirmed. I will rather say a huge thank you to the Movement for a New Nigeria, than castigate it, for letting the cat out of the bag. Thanks folks, Nigerians now know better.
In other climes where terrorists have suffered serious setbacks, it was mainly due to the patriotic fervour and unalloyed loyalty displayed by the people to put an end to monster that had already metamorphosed into a clear and present danger. If those behind the clearly invidious attacks against the Office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria have an answer to fighting the Boko Haram, they should pay a visit to the Presidential Villa and join hands with the security forces to save Nigeria from the devils trying to set it ablaze. And if they have no idea about the best way to confront the monster, they should stop stoking the embers of bloodletting. There is nowhere in the world where a presidential ticket is dashed to those who hold to a suspicious capacity to fight terror whilst the nation burns. Nigerians cannot and should not allow the 2015 election to be negotiated on this vortex of violence against our humanity. Those bereft of any idea about the danger confronting this country should, at least, keep quiet and allow Jonathan focus on tackling the menace. They owe us this as a people and we demand nothing less!
Mohammed, a public affairs commentator, writes from Abuja.
