Opinion: Terrorism as Nigeria’s security challenge

By Auwal Muhammad

The emergence of terror groups in Nigeria raises a fundamental question of what is the actual source of terrorism.

Is it natural for people to act and become terrorists? Or it is incubated by lack of good governance?

These questions are fundamentally important because the concept to which they address is as difficult as the answers themselves.

However, to provide answers to the above questions a definition is required. According to FBI terrorism is unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population or any segment in furtherance of political or social objectives.

It is important to note that terrorism usually hinges on some ideological power of a cause as a base for terrorists’ actions.

This view has introduced us to the notion of terrorism.

An answer to the first question above came from Nietzsche who asserts that at the heart of the matter is the assumption that there is a conflict between human instincts and morality- human nature and civilization.

Nietzsche goes on to argue that by nature man is a wild and dangerous animal. Therefore, for Nietzsche terror and brutality are necessary to civilize him and make him fit for society.

Terror and civilization are intimately linked because terror is the key to the civilizing process.

In what appears to be a deliberate attempt to disarm the nurtured view from any standpoint, Nietzsche and Homer give their take on the notions of injustice and inequalities.

For Nietzsche, the concepts of justices are not natural, eternal, and unchanging. They all have their origin from history.

Their origin is in power, because they were originally constructed by the powerful, the well born, and the favored by gods.

The toiling masses seeking for justice are only making an attempt to justify for themselves what does not belong to them.

Similarly, Homer argues that nature and justice are one.

The inequalities of society are but the reflection of the inequalities of nature. But later, the unfortunate, downtrodden, envious, and misbegotten, gain control and declare nature to be unjust, and set out to compensate for her injustices.

Based on these views good governance has nothing to do with terrorism and vice-versa.

This might probably be the reason behind the racial killings in the most proclaimed democratic society- America.

On the contrary, the complexity of the causes of terrorism requires some intellectual skepticism since according to Chomsky the nature of man or of the range of viable social forms is so rudimentary that any far-reaching doctrine must be treated with great skepticism, just as skepticism is in order when, for instance, the naturalist view about terrorism is presented.

Skepticism should chart a new approach to understanding terrorism. This can be done through excogitation on the farreaching doctrine of naturalist view about terrorism.

This radical view about terrorism by the likes of Homer and Nietzsche merits closer look.

Despotic and corrupt states owe some advantages to anarcho-syndicalists by preparing ground that would facilitate easy preparation of the states’ toiling masses in the cities to bind themselves together as militant force.

The task is easily fulfilled for Adam Smith notes that no society shall surely be flourishing and happy of which by far the greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

The notion of government as social contract implies, though indirectly, that terrorism is nurtured.

Social scientists such as Rousseau and Harold Lesswell have demonstrated how terrorism emerged when government fails to comply with contractual agreement it signed with the people.

For Rousseau, people enter into contract among themselves and between them and government whereby they agree to surrender certain rights to the state in return for security and the protection of rights.

All men are born with these rights equally and the government must protect them. However when the government fails, the citizens reserve all the right to challenge its authority and, if necessary, overthrow it.

He concludes that the citizens retain the supreme power to hire and fire.

Harold’s take, on the other hand, reveals the power of propaganda in pursuing the renewal of contract by those who feel victimized.

According to him revolutionary strategy relies so much on propaganda, and propaganda being a linguistic resource has an inherent manipulative power.

Therefore, in countries such as Nigeria where corruption, injustice, inequalities and lack of security prevail, people start to challenge constituted authority which eventually nurtured a favorable environment for terrorism to set in.

Which cap then fits Nigeria? The answer is that terrorism is nurtured.

The second theory, therefore, applies. One of the sources of disagreement among Nigerians is the constitution.

The Nigeria’s constitutional lawyer Fredrick Rotimi William expressed, for example, his disgust against the Nigeria’s Constitution where he states that the 1999 Constitution tells lies about itself, therefore it is a false document, (The Guardian June, 1999. P.1).

This kind of reaction reflects dissatisfaction with the way things are going in the country, which may not be a garrison to the polity.

Declaration of non-state activities in the country is, therefore, a result of bad governance leading to lack of harmonious relations among the segments of the country hence terrorism is a nurtured product.

In addition, the heterogeneous nature of Nigeria as a country raises suspicion as to whether Nigeria would experiment with good governance.

Although the slogan ‘united we stand divided we fall’ is a deliberate linguistic attempt to suppress the country’s differences, poor leadership has not only destroyed the country’s collective being but also widened the corridors of ethno-religious as well as linguistic divides.

This tendency cracks the country’s wall of unity leading to insecurity. Similarly, the political structure of Nigerian state is bereft of democratic values which would have been answers to any unforeseen dangers.

Political actors play an ingenious game that always works for them.

Ashafa states that politicians grouped around ethnicbased party.

Using propaganda as a linguistic resource, they mobilized their followers by creating the impression that the other parties were champions of the interest of their various tribes and regions, and that the struggles of these parties represented the struggles of those ethnic groups for political ascendency in the polity.

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According to him, competition for the limited offices and associated resources renders the parties to generate antagonism and hostility among the ethnic groups and regions.

The implication of all these to the nation is the creation of suspicion which creates and betrays the ‘demonic others’.

Suffice it to say that terrorism in Nigeria is a nurtured activity created and nurtured by poor leadership.

Thus, peace could only return to the country when we have good leaders-leaders who are chosen not on moral commentary but on their capacity and ability to perform.