Apart from Nigeria and Egypt, Christian families in Iraq were shocked to find small packages of improvised explosive devices placed at their doorsteps before the new year. Although these attacks on Christians are not uncommon in the Islamic world, there is an upsurge of such incidents in the Middle- East.
About this time last year, the world was suffused with the news of Abdulmutallab, the young Nigerian that was arrested in Detroit for trying to blow up a Delta Airlines plane with explosives packed in his underwear.
There are temptations to ignore these coincidences and say no cause for alarm. But, from the post-amnesty conference bomb blasts in Warri last March, to the nation’s golden jubilee bomb blasts in Abuja, and the importation of 13 container-load of arms and ammunition, grenades and rocket launchers to yet-unknown destination, we cannot ignore the possibility of terror attacks on our shores. The Nigerian state has been careful to diffuse attention that the deadly consignment was meant for “local consumption,” but the situation in Jos on December 24 and Abuja on December 31, 2010, must have left nobody in doubt that we have terrorists living next door.
Whereas some international political analysts may want to see the Abuja and Jos bomb blasts as localised and isolated, we live in a globalised 21st century environment that imposes the responsibility to take holistic view of events around us. Not many Nigerians would have thought of seeing one of their own, from an affluent background, becoming a suicide bomber. In Egypt, the previous bombings had targeted tourists.
But the latest attack coincided with the multiple-attacks on Christian targets in Nigeria and Iraq after the Al Qaeda threats last month that Egyptian Coptic Christians would be attacked. Since 2003, Nigeria, Kenya, Indonesia, India, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait have been on the radar of Al Qaeda for possible terror attack. Kenya, Indonesia, India and Egypt have been attacked since then, but Nigeria faced the threat of militancy in the Southsouth region.
There seems to be a coordinated campaign being conducted against churches through a network that has evaded detection by the intelligence services.
The spate of bomb blasts in Nigeria can be defined as the use of violence or threat of use of violence to achieve a political objective. The victims are usually vulnerable targets like women, children, the old and sick. The choice of targets has been informed by the need to attract maximum publicity with the goal to strike fear into the general public. This, in a nutshell, is a simple way to define terrorism for the purpose of the context.
Terror is derived from Latin, meaning great fear or dread. The use of terror became the order of the day in 1793 under the French National Convention, but Maximillian Robespierre, leader of the French Revolution, declared the state of terror from 1794 to 1795, when “terror was seen as nothing other than justice, prompt, severe and flexible.”
There is no universally accepted definition of the term terrorism and the international community has not succeeded in evolving an accepted definition of terrorism.
Dr. Ademola Adeleke, an international politics expert, argues that there are basic, yet controversial issues surrounding the definition of ´terrorism.´
Because of the ingroup/outgroup paradigm, what distinguishes a “terrorist group “ from a ‘liberation movement’ could be a matter of world view or the group to which one belongs like in any situation that involves Christians vs Muslims, Jews vs Arabs, Igbo vs Yoruba, Ife vs Modakeke, Aguleri vs Umuleri. Terrorists are non-state actors like Hamas in Palestine, ETA in Spain, IRA in Northern Ireland, Al Qaeda, the Red Brigade in Italy, and MEND in Niger Delta. These are groups that want to use their method to force state actors to negotiate but there are also instances of state-sponsored terrorism.
During the liberation struggle in South Africa, the use of violence was classified as an act of terror by the whites, who controlled the thought process, while the blacks, who were using violence, never saw themselves as terrorists. Similarly, the Palestinians, who were fighting for a homeland in the Middle-East, used hijacking of planes.
Terrorism has been used in conflicts where the strength between two or more groups is unequal. Here the “weaker” combatants attempt to use terrorist strategy to make up for the deficiencies in strength and strategies.
Prof. Kayode Soremekun, an expert in international politics, argues:“the meaning of terrorism is embedded in a person’s or nation’s thinking, hence the true definition of terrorism is subjective.” The dispute on the meaning of terrorism arose since the Laws of War were first codified in 1899. The international community has worked on two comprehensive counter-terrorism treaties, the League of Nations’ 1937 Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism that never entered into force and the proposed Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, which has not been finalised yet.
Since Nigeria joined the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), in 1985, the country has been making effort to suppress radical Islamic groups and ideology; it has spent so much energy to bring down the militants in the Niger Delta who were not ideologically focused.
Implications
The attacks in Nigeria and Egypt are significant and clearly terrorist attacks. Nigeria is the largest black nation on earth with a population of 150 million people. Similarly, Egypt is the largest Arab country, with a population of about 80 million.
The two countries have been wrestling with Muslim fanaticism. The Brotherhood and the Boko Haram sects share radical Islamic ideologies and they are funded by external forces that want to see the spread of fundamentalist concept of the faith.
The attacks represent attempts to impose a particular way of thought on these countries that have long tradition of secularism. Nigeria and Egypt are two of the three most important powers in Africa. For instance, Nigeria, a major power house in the politics of Africa, holds the balance of power in West Africa. Egypt is the centre of Arab culture and served as the engine shaping the Arab response to global politics. Egypt was a radical, militarised power under Gamal Abdul Nasser, the founder of the pan-Arab movement as opposed to pan-Islamic radicalism.
In 1956, Egypt allied with the Soviet Union and, in the process, redefined the geopolitics of the Mediterranean region. In the 1970s, it switched to the West while the dynamics of geopolitics changed as well. More than any other Arab country, Egypt matters in global political balance of power. When Egypt is assertive, it shapes the regional politics and when it hibernates, the region becomes prey to outside forces, Islamic and otherwise.
Political future
Nigeria is facing a precarious political future while diplomats and international intelligence community warn that the inability of the political elite to reach a consensus on power-sharing arrangement will lead to the disintegration of the country in 2015. There have been warnings that the level of internal strife that might emerge from the forthcoming elections will result in extremist groups and militants creating their own kingdoms and building private armies they will use to control the resources in their territories.
For Egypt, it may enter into a period of internal strife and instability as well. President Hosni Mubarak is aging and troubled by cancer, while his plan for his son, Gumel, to succeed him is being opposed and his regime fails to suppress the Islamists who want to take over power, repudiate the Nasserite heritage and establish an Islamic republic in Egypt.
There may be other countervailing forces and factors seeking to prevent the possible failure of Nigeria and Egypt but, in the case of Nigeria, an attempt to promote pro-Islamic agenda will back- fire and provide the south the impetus to exit from an unprogressive federalism. Nigeria is strategic to the global energy need; it is also crucial to the maintenance of security of the Gulf of Guinea region. The fear of the magnitude of crisis and insecurity in the region forced the US to create the African Command (AFRICOM).
In the same way, a pro-Islamist Egypt would change the power configuration in the Mediterranean. According to an analyst, this will force the US to reshape its strategy and make Israel to refocus its Middle-East policy. An Islamic Egypt will give “impetus to radical Islam throughout the Arab world.” The transformation of Egypt into an Islamic country will be more significant than an atomic Iran.
The internal dynamics in Nigeria are changing. For the first time, a man from the oil-rich minority is in power and there seems to be a threat of ethno-religious crisis to destabilise the country. The consequences will be dire.
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The Vanguard, Nigeria