Nigeria and terrorism

By Ochereome Nnanna
ON Saturday, 18th November 2012, I
arrived at the JFK International
Airport, New York, on my way back to
Nigeria after covering the US
presidential elections. It was on this
day that I underwent the most
humiliating security browsing of my
person.

My exit processes were going smoothly
until I arrived at the desk of the
United States Transportation Security
Administration (TSA).
I made the mistake of not removing my
laptop and ipad from one of my carry-on
luggage before I inserted it in the
scanner. The scanner beeped as my bag
with my electronic gadgets went through
it. The operatives stopped the machine
and scanned the bag again. There was
another beep. They looked at one
another. They told me to step out of the
line.
“You should have brought out your laptop
and ipad before putting it in the
scanner, Mr. Nnanna”, said a lady
operative.
She opened my bags and started a
toothcomb search, while an elderly,
white male operative practically took me
apart with his gloved hands, looking for
something incriminating; perhaps, drugs
or weapons or worse.
After about forty minutes, they took me
further away and asked me to sit down. A
minute later, a huge, heavily mustached
operative looking like a character out
of a John Grisham legal thriller, came.
With a deceptive nice-guy smile and
greeted me breezily:
“Hello, Mr. Nnanna! How are you?”
“I am fine”.
“Good. Hope you stay fine!”
Then another fifteen minutes of
searching, with heavier gadgets
conducted by three operatives, started.
I kept looking at my watch, as departure
time was closing in.
One of the black operatives finally
smiled at me and said:
“Mr. Nnanna, you’re okay. If not, we’d
have taken you in there, and your flight
would leave without you”.
Since he seemed so friendly and chatty,
I decided to ask him why all the fuss.
“Your luggage alarmed twice. You are a
Nigerian, right? We are particular about
people from Nigeria and the Middle East.
Have a safe trip, Mr. Nnanna”.
This experience came rushing back to me
as I watched on CNN how a couple of
black men, who were later identified to
have Nigeria roots even though they were
born and raised in Britain, savagely
stabbed and beheaded a British soldier
in the glare of the public in Woolwich,
London.
It was the most blood-chilling cold-
blooded murder imaginable.
These young men, identified as Michael
Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale;
converts to Islam, butchered army
drummer, Lee Rigby. Adebolajo, in fact,
went to a camera, still covered in gore,
and ranted that the crime was
retaliation for Muslims being killed by
“Christian crusaders” around the world.
After that, he crossed the road and
joined his accomplice to wait for up to
thirty minutes for the police to arrive!
They were later shot and wounded before
being taken into custody.
It is this type of crazy escapade (which
reminds us of Farouk Abdulmutallab, the
lad who attempted to suicide-bomb a US-
bound plane) that is getting the world
out there to put Nigerians in the basket
of terror-prone people of the world.
It is very easy to hear Nigerians say:
“we are not terrorists”. Nobody is
really born a terrorist. Both
Abdulmutallab and Adebolajo were known
to be quiet and from families you cannot
describe as “poor”. Somewhere along the
line, the devil got into them and they
became pawns in the hands of evil people
masquerading behind religion.
About forty years ago, Arabs were
perceived as being among the world’s
most cowardly people, given the ease
with which they were beaten in two
regional wars by Israel. Today, they are
feared even by the West because of their
current, widespread suicide and war-
mongering mentality over religion.
Nigerians, previously not associated
with the ability to commit suicide
bombing, are regularly doing it now.
Something happens to change a docile
people into monsters. When society loses
grip of its core values, the young
people drift off into the waiting hands
of alien influences.
In their blind quest for material ends,
parents are losing grip over their
children. Communities, which used to
play roles in the upbringing of
Africans, are no longer doing so due to
growing urban-related individualism.
Government has lost its relevance
because it is no longer able to play its
role in the lives of citizens.
In Nigeria, everybody has to hustle to
provide for his family all the basic
things of modern life such as housing,
water, electricity, education, health
and security. Little time is left to pay
quality attention to the moral and
mental health of growing people, who so
easily go astray.
Government also plays a huge role in
promoting social injustice. The system
does not allow citizens to come together
as one. It rather encourages them to
draw battle lines and be at one
another’s throats.
This, to me, is the summary of the cause
of the various problems that manifest in
terrorism, militancy, violent crimes,
evil cultism and general demonry. Others
are noticing this gradual change in us,
but we continue to live in denial of
what we have become.