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Wither Terrorism in Nigeria? By Is’haq Zango
Two towers collapsed. A couple thousand people died. And the world was changed. September the eleventh of two thousand and one was the beginning of another era. An age where the world was beaten into a frenzy about the present and immediate danger of Muslim terrorists who were bent on exterminating the entire world. But it was more than the fear of a bogey. It was the way of thinking; and the entire world was co-opted into thinking in such manner. The powerful governments and the media ensured that. You’re either with that school of thought or you’re against it – there was no middle ground.
Thus, to prove that they were with the powerful USA, countries all over the World started falling over themselves to provide evidences of their fight against terrorism. The bank accounts of Islamic charity organisations were frozen so that wells they were to build for the poor dried up even before they were dug. And some students in universities had to cut short their studies because the scholarships were no longer forthcoming. Countless of arrests were made especially in countries where there was any sizeable population of Muslims.
The stupidity of such arrests was severally shown by Al Jazeera documentaries which detailed how prisoners from Guantanamo Bay prison were simply asked to ‘go’ after spending several months or even years without trial; and after it became apparent to their tormentors that they were innocent.
In our own Nigeria, the police and other security agents – to show that they were on the same page with America – started looking for terrorists in every corner and soon enough they found them lurking in every shadow. The most recent case is that of six foreign preachers that were arrested in Abuja.
On 15th December, 2008 the Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiro told the conference of senior police officers in Akure that the men were being investigated on the suspicion of their possible links with Al Qaeda.
It turned out that the preachers were members of the harmless At Tabligh Brotherhood who travel from country to country – including the UK and the US – to preach Islam. It also turned out that by the time Okiro was making his speech the men had already been released for want of evidence to brand them as terrorists. But Okiro conveniently omitted that detail in order to impress his patrons that they were fighting terrorists.
On the 17th of December Daily Trust reported John Haruna, the Commissioner of Police as saying "We deployed the detectives to the mosque to determine the truism of the situation who thereafter found the men and arrested them. They were found with forged passports in which four out of them were having Zambian passports while 2 were found with Indian passports. The men are well fed, rich and speak fluent Arabic language,"
John Haruna did not tell us if it was the Zambian or the Indian High Commission that told them that the passports were forged but it was evident that according to their definition of a terrorist one only needs to commit one or a combination of the following crimes: one, you’re a Muslim and you’ve been to Afghanistan and Pakistan; two, you’re a Muslim and you preach from mosque to mosque; three, you’re a Muslim and you speak fluent Arabic; four, you’re a Muslim and you’re well fed!
Then there was the case of Mr. Ashafa who was detained for several months and released on bail but not until they damaged his vocal chords to the extent that he could only speak with much difficulty.
Nigerian Muslims are troubled by all these in-your-face insults directed at them or their guests by government agents. But unlike their Christian counterparts, they do not complain on the pages or newspapers or write petitions.
But then a question may be asked: does a clash exist between the Islamic culture and the Western culture to the extent that people will kill in the name of God? According to Patrick Cockburn of The Independent, the phenomenon of confrontation over religion and clashing cultures does not exist.
Even the chief US interrogator in Iraq, Major Mathew Alexander, said that during 1,300 interrogations he supervised he saw only one true ideologue “I listened time and time again to foreign fighters, and Sunni Iraqis, state that the No 1 reason they had decided to pick up arms and join Al Qaeda was the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the authorized torture and abuse at Guantanamo Bay.”
But let us assume there exists such a clash between Islam and the West: are the so-called terrorists fighting the cause of Islam? Their methods (of mass attacks) violate Islamic tenets. Like in all things else Islam is clear about how Muslims should engage their enemies. And there are also rules of engagement such as not attacking women, children, old people, monks, or even able bodied non-combatant men. Thus, a true Muslim will not detonate a bomb that will kill innocent people. But we have always known that much of the noise about Muslim terrorists is a media creation.
Finally Muslims – Nigerian Muslims inclusive – are not happy about how Obama is asking for peace with Muslims while the Pentagon is doing the opposite. For example while President Obama is asking Muslims to unclench their fists, US military spending will increase (over former President Bush’s) by US$200 billion this year and the next to pay for the occupation in Iraq and the expanded war in Afghanistan.
In conclusion, besides the shared concerns among the Muslim brethren all over the world, there is no terrorism or terrorists in Nigeria – yet.
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