We are all confounded by the emergent phenomenon of female suicide bombers. My last week’s article merely sought to explore the possib...
We
are all confounded by the emergent phenomenon of female suicide bombers. My
last week’s article merely sought to explore the possible triggers for this
truly scary development. I didn’t pretend to know the answers.
A
reader who hasn’t given me permission to reveal her name emailed comments to me
that said she was “struck by [my] naiveté regarding the challenges faced by Muslim
Hausa girls,” adding: “I thought that your idea that it is the boys who are
‘thrown out’ betrays a certain lack of consciousness of gendered nature of
disparities. I saw this report in Sahara Reporters (“14-Year-Old Girl Set To
Undergo Murder Trial Over Forced Marriage”) which reminds me of the big wahala
of forced marriage, sexual exploitation of children and its impact on their health.
Please don't forget that Boko Hram talks about selling children into marriage.”
I frankly don’t know how forced marriage
and sexual exploitation, which are age-old problems, have contributed to the
rise of female suicide bombers in Nigeria. Well, read below the thoughts some
other readers shared with me.
You
are right that we have reached a creepy new phase in Nigeria. But it may get
even creepier. I suspect that the next thing Boko Haram will do is to use
children as suicide bombers. That would just be the end of Nigeria as we know
it. If even children can’t be trusted to be innocent, harmless little
creatures, we are finished! Everybody and everything will be suspected. Our
lives have been turned upside down now. But it can only get worse, sadly.
People used to run for dear lives when they saw bearded person heading their
way. Then they started running when they saw people on motor cycles because
Boko Haram initially bombed through motor cycles. Then we became afraid of
cars. Now, we are made to be afraid of women in hijab. What next will we be
made afraid of? It’s just so tiring.
Musa Isa
Your
suspicion that the suspect arrested in connection with the assassination
attempt on General Muhammadu Buhari was a “made-up suspect” may be right. His
mother has said that the “suspect” is well-known in the neighborhood as a
mentally disturbed person who cross-dresses. Nigerian security forces can turn
anybody into a “suspect” or even a “convict” just to give the public the
impression that they are working.
Stephen Yakubu
I
really cherish your informative insight about this wanton and brutal
heartlessness. But your theories haven't covered other freshly manufactured
speculations that are being peddled in Kano! And, although it is just a hunch,
it is growing beyond the borders of gossip. Politicians and the sage elders in
Kano are formulating some political undertones about these incidents! I wonder
if Professor could look into this aspect critically and feed us afterwards with
his findings!
Mubarak Ibrahim
My
mind is already wrenched and bleeding over the ongoing massacre in Gaza by the
Israeli forces, and, unfortunately the disturbing news of these female suicide
bombers adds insult to injury. What could have motivated a female to carry out
such dastardly attacks is indeed a puzzle. You are not being naïve, Prof. and,
yes, your theories are possibilities. However, no doubt they are, or at least
one of them, is a female. Her picture has been viral on cyberspace. She
typically looks female. Again, I believe no degree of despair could have
motivated that; it’s simply a polluted indoctrination injected into their
brains by Boko Haram members. For instance, in the Kano Polytechnic incident,
the bomber was brought in an expensive car, according to eyewitness accounts.
She was again looking posh. I think their deluders simply concoct more hadiths
and misinterpret more Qur’anic verses, as they always do, to justify the deadly
act. And, chauvinistically speaking, women are said to have a moderate thinking
faculty; thus, they easily buy the ideology and carry it out.
Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim
'Feelings
of deep hurt and hopelessness'' are the major drivers to suicide bombing in
addition to a sense of loss and brain washing.
Abubakar Umar
Another possibility is that they may have been
forced by Boko Haram to carry out the bombings, possibly afraid that noncompliance
may result in their families being massacred. Thanks
for the link to [the US Army’s] “Female Suicide Bombers.” It is quite
interesting as well.
Njong Suka
These
suicide bombers are girls, not men dressed in women's clothing. I subscribe to
the argument that they are probably forced (as opposed to being brainwashed
given how long it takes to indoctrinate people towards a nihilist ideology)
with threats to their families perhaps to engage in these acts.
Zainab Usman
I think women may also resort to suicide
bombings if their husbands died in the same course. They may be seduced into
believing that they will meet their husbands in heaven if they blow themselves
up instead of continuously remaining stranded widows. This is very probable!
Aliyu Bashir Almusawi
You
say we should dismiss conspiracy theories as ridiculous. But sometimes we see
elements of truth in it. Now remember the abduction of the Chibok school girls.
Most people now suspect that they are bewitched to the suicides we see today.
Back to conspiracy theory, it suggests that a person can be hypnotised through
drugging and psychological manipulations. Such person when hypnotised can go
and commit what he will otherwise not do in his normal senses.
Ibrahim Muhammad Kurfi
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