Nigeria: The Reality of Terrorism in the Country

2 January 2011
opinion

It looks like Nigerians will now have to look forward to every Christmas with bated breath. On Christmas Day last year, we all woke up to the very sad news that a 23-year-old Nigerian had attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound plane in an apparent suicide bomb attack.

If Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had succeeded, 270 passengers and 11 crew members would have perished, in addition to the unlucky people that would have been at the location of the crash. The news was as shocking as it was embarrassing. This is the kind of news one was used to hearing about other people in distant lands. I had never imagined that any Nigerian could contemplate suicide, much less suicide bombing. Suicide has never been part of our DNA.

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