Bogus Definitions And The Nigerian Terrorist…

The Nigerian terrorists are not those you had imagined them to be. To terrorize the Nigerian state and its evil rulers, you had to have demanded to be treated as a citizen, or to have demanded lawful accounts of the unconscionable powers that they wield…

raveling to America before the Mutallab boy, was a breeze if you were not entering America on a direct flight from Nigeria, and when I would travel with BA after a few days in London, it was particularly devoid of stress. I have had less stress in going through American immigration and customs when I had travelled this way.

The Nigerian passport attracted little attention from the Americans, once you were not coming from a drug trafficking zone, and I got absolutely none of the hassles, that I either read of, or was told to me by friends. Nigerians were only profiled for drug and immigration related offenses at the gateway to the world’s capitals. A trip made to America in February of 2010, was the first taste of the new reality of the traveling Nigerian. Mutallab had flown to America in December 2009, and every Nigerian became a potential suicide bomber/terrorist in the eyes of the world.

The Nigerian terrorist in the eyes of the entire world, is the man that is sworn to Islamist terrorism, and one that is prepared to die in pursuit of his evil beliefs. To the Nigerian: the poor and hapless victim of the terrorists’ lunacies, the ones that have lost loved ones, homes, farms, their peace, limbs, been dislocated and disinherited, the terrorist is the lost brother, the kidnapped sister, the misled kin, the desperate and unemployed, the ones that have been lost to the madness of religious extremism, enforced by the hunger and despair in the land.

But the Nigerian state and its rulers defines terrorism different from the victims. The Boko Haram extremist is not a terrorist to the Nigerian state. The Fulani herdsmen are not terrorists. The military wings of the Niger Delta godfathers, are also not terrorists to be engaged. The one that would qualify in the land of the Yorubas, is now a decorated chief. The Nigerian state rewards madness daily.

The Nigerian state remains the country with the most successful deradicalization program in the world, and were it not for the rabid jealousy of the Americans, the house of Saudi was going to contract our army to help deradicalize some of the ones disturbing the kingdom. We shall yet earn huge forex reserves from our rather effective program. When a man milks snake venom as a side hustle, building a world envied deradicalization program is a breeze. The Boko haram threat has been comprehensively dealt with under the able leadership of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.

With the RUGA policy in full flow, and the compulsory education of the rest of the country as to the universal rights of the nomadic Fulani to Nigerian citizenship, the suspected Fulani herdsmen are no longer suspects, but are now citizens, and once the rest of the country heeds the sagely advice of the not quite as wise as Ahithophel, Femi Adesina, and give up their ancestral lands for the now peaceful and brand new Nigerian citizens, we shall all live together happily ever after.

The Nigerian terrorists are the likes of MNK. How dare he demand citizenship for the Igbo nation! Then you have that pesky one that goes around shouting “Revolution Now!”  Who does that? He has even birthed a whole lot of them, running around wearing Orange Berets, armed with leaflets and megaphones, bloody terrorists! Causing upheavals everywhere, demanding this and that. Nonsense!

Just as the Nigerian state was managing to wrap its brains around the Orange nonsense, the jobless youth brought the #EndSARS. The lazy youth wouldn’t even listen when the saint renamed the police unit as has been done several times in the past. Instead of accepting to be settled as is the usual custom, the ENDSARS pikins became terrorists and acquired plenty of dangerous weapons. They acquired sophisticated flags that are capable of firing ballistic missiles, and it has taken the enormous efforts of our gallant soldiers, to clear the Lekki tollgate, a national treasure, of the pesky terrorists that had occupied it. First, we were not there, until we were there, and then when we were there, we only fired blanks.

The Nigerian terrorists are not those you had imagined them to be. To terrorize the Nigerian state and its evil rulers, you had to have demanded to be treated as a citizen, or to have demanded lawful accounts of the unconscionable powers that they wield. Killing and maiming the Nigerian peoples does not make you a terrorist, and this is why the bandits and Boko haram are treated as errant minors to be scolded and mollycoddled, but the like of Yele is lawfully imprisoned by a court of law, that has proven not to be the court of justice.

The English language came to die in my country, and we have revolutionized the meaning of several English words in this blighted land. Bogus is a good one to contemplate, but it is definitely not the last. It would be a good idea to update your lexicon in relation to the word terrorism and other such aligned words. Emiefele did a fantastic job already, as he was clamping down on the Nigerian terrorists, the UAE, were clamping down on their own definition of terrorists. But we know whose definition is bogus.

DF