Given the missed chance at assassinating
Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) two Wednesdays’ ago, a blitzkrieg of
female suicidal bombings, starting Sunday this week, seems intent on
compensating for the failure. Except for the Lagos incident where Boko
Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, claimed he used a female suicide bomber
to set off the explosion, none has claimed responsibility for this
emergent phenomenon; maybe, the coordinators are too timid to hoist
their flag – yet.
From Borno State where news of terrorists
attacks has been regurgitated to the point of banality, to Kano,
Kaduna, and Adamawa states, the body count increases. Nigeria has been
invaded by a slew of predatory martyrs. And some of them are women in
their teenage years.
Whilst pondering the new madness that
appears to have made an unrelenting purchase on our national catalogue
of theatricalised violence, I note that the ISIS, the new terror of
moderate Muslims and liberals who seek an oppression-free society, has
tentacles that stretch from the Middle East to parts of Africa and
Europe. Their inimitable proxies meanwhile – the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb, the factions of Libya, Boko Haram and Al-Shabab – have
softened the ground for the ISIS triumphant but grim invasion.
Although the map they draw on
geopolitical zones of the world is a cause for worry, for now I will
rather consign them to the delusional grandeur that propels half-wits to
spectacular ruin. Both Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden suffered from a
similar megalomania. Presently, I am more worried by the emergence of
female predatory martyrs.
Although relatively a novelty in Nigeria,
female suicide bombing has existed for years. They are a proof that
viciousness has nothing to do with biology. In Russia, Chechnya,
Palestine, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, women have successfully carried
out suicide bombing attacks showing that they are as much political
subjects as men. Yet, I wonder, how is it that females, a disadvantaged
collective in many measurable modern ways, became the swords of their
tormentors?
To paint a startling picture of the
abjectness of Nigeria’s female predatory martyrs, northern Nigeria that
is now spawning them is one place these women are accorded the status of
a third-class citizen. In June, UNICEF noted that Nigeria has the
highest number of children out of school: a staggering 10.5 million! A
higher percentage of this number is from northern Nigeria with more than
60 per cent being females. A year ago, a former CBN governor and now
the Emir of Kano, Lamido Sanusi, lamented that 93 per cent of women in
northern Nigeria lack as much as secondary education. On top of this
educational drawback, there are social, political and cultural
disadvantages that dog the women all their lives. Yet, the toga of
suicide bombs is now being added to their drudgery.
What motivates them: anger, hate or
revenge? If men are said to be driven by the thought of 72 virgins,
(quite an enticing offer for a virile male, really) what then drives the
women? Coercion? Brainwashing? Money? I have no doubt that their
ideological conversion process was no different from that of the men.
Only that they probably never considered that their martyrdom benefits
only their coordinators,who will not walk the talk when it comes to
women having equal social, cultural and political access with them. How
did they overlook their social predicament to accept to be dynamites in
the hands of their oppressors?
Yes, and they are motivated by the glory
of martyrdom. Women who become human bombs are, seemingly, motivated for
the same reason other women want to be in the boardroom: to share power
and glory with male counterparts.
As it is, female suicide bombers will
likely increase over time. The answer might lie in the combination of
biology, and politics.
Females, for one, are seen as less
threatening and can therefore bypass places where men cannot. She can
carry more explosives on her body by simply pretending she is pregnant
and due to some particular religion-based clothing, she can hide more
materials. The political angle involves the likelihood of the growth of
an army of ‘Black Widows,’ victims of the establishment brutality – from
the attacks on Maiduguri in 2007 when there was indiscriminate killing
of suspected Boko Haram members by men of the Nigerian state – and have
worked up enough anger in them to want to strike back in vengeance.
Female suicide bombing, yet, does little
to elevate the woman’s status before the paternal class who runs the
terrorist establishments. Watch the same Shekau on video boasting about
the kidnap of the Chibok girls; how he threatened to sell them for as
little as N2, 000 and even marry them off. In his little mind, they are
pieces of household furniture he could just dispose of at will.
Some while ago, Prof. Wole Soyinka, in an
op-ed piece titled, “And Now, the Ecumenical City of Jos?”,
preemptively suggested recruiting women into the Nigerian Army as combat
fighters and even creating a special unit of women fighters to confront
Boko Haram. He reasoned that if the group loathes women so much, then
training women to fight against it would be waging a battle with it at
the level of psyche.
He said, “The women have borne the brunt
of Boko Haram hatred, disdain, dehumanisation and primordial
viciousness. Survivors of their onslaught, and even those who have not
undergone any baptism of fire, but have the ‘fire in their belly’ should
be encouraged to teach Boko Haram some gender-free truths of human
commitment at the war front and the even more primordial call of human
liberation, even at the risk of life…. Even the late Qaddafi refused to
trust his most intimate safety net to any but a female praetorian guard.
Nor should we forget that female combatants were recorded on both sides
during the Nigerian civil war…. Nothing unique therefore is proposed
here, and of course we are speaking of strict volunteering only, not
conscription. The door should be cast open even wider to the gender
peers of those whose very presence within the army, even in auxiliary
roles, already punctures the warped theology of Boko Haram.”
Now, I think is the time to give the good
Prof’s suggestion one more look. Women fighters are nothing new in
history. There are historical accounts of how some Ibadan women went to
war with men. In one instance, dethroned an Oba. The emergence of female
suicide bombers is proof that what a man can do, a woman can do just as
well. Let women join the combat against Boko Haram. After all they are
already fighting on the side of the enemy.
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