Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
from Africa News blog:
Was Nigerian bomber a one-off?
Quite apart from the Nigerian would-be plane bomber’s lack of success, there are other reasons why Africa’s most populous nation cannot be expected to produce a rash of similar cases.
As this Reuters story from Sahabi Yahaya in the bomber’s home town of Funtua points out, it is Umar Abdulmutallab’s foreign education rather than his background in Muslim northern Nigeria that is seen as having radicalised him.
The relatively affluent upbringing is not too dissimilar to that of some of the Sept. 11 attackers or Al Qaeda recruits for other attacks, but makes him a particular exception in Nigeria. Most people live on less than $2 a day and many would give almost anything just to have got aboard the plane he tried to blow up. Every year, tens of thousands of Abdulmutallab’s compatriots brave deserts, oceans and unsympathetic immigration police to try to get to the West for just a taste of the chances he had and to take whatever work they can get to better themselves and their families.
Although only around half of Nigeria’s population is Muslim, that still gives it the sixth biggest Muslim population in the world.
But while outbreaks of religious violence in northern Nigeria have killed thousands of people over the past decade – hundreds died in July in clashes between security forces and the radical Boko Haram sect – bloodshed has often also been just as tied to political and ethnic factors.
Islamic jurisprudence in Nigeria is based on the moderate Maliki school of Sunni Islam and Boko Haram's ideology is dismissed by the country's Muslim leaders and most believers.
Many comments on Nigerian websites bemoaned the fact that the attempted bombing would make it even harder for Nigerians travelling abroad and for their country to improve its image.
The show of the Ashura festival (2010) celebration in northern Nigeria as aired by bbc should reveal this fact: growing islamic fundamentalism! Far more radical than the most radical of the islamic world! The recent Boko Haram incidence is a proof..and historically the maitasine riots and several others. The sultanate and the emirates are a constant reminder – a religion spread and maintained through violence. In the light of this, the last of the bomber from northern Nigeria is yet! The CIA’s prediction that Nigeria would be a failed state is no insult, not if you live in northern Nigeria and are previlage to hearing the radical sermons in the mosques these days. The violence in Jos is a taste of things to come. Soon even the east and south of the country will be engulfed in flames – the plans are in the works! I feel pained when the western press say its a fight for resouce control, or elections or ethnic. ITS A JIHAD! In islam every non-believer belongs to the house of WAR! Yes, while carrying out Jihad, looting & rape is part of the reward! And if you die in Jihad, its a “costly and glorious death”! Wake up world! The islamic hordes are on the break again! Iran means business with the nukes, the taleban will always come back, Al-Qaeda is sponsored by the muslim world and terrorism is ISMAELS’s second name!