Tragedy that is Female Suicide Bombers

On Sallah Day last Sunday, a young woman estimated to be 16 years old tried to enter the campus of the Northwest University at Gadan Kaya in Kano. Vigilant policemen demanded that she be searched by female police officers. Before this could be done, the woman exploded an Improvised Explosive Device [IED] concealed under her […]

On Sallah Day last Sunday, a young woman estimated to be 16 years old tried to enter the campus of the Northwest University at Gadan Kaya in Kano. Vigilant policemen demanded that she be searched by female police officers. Before this could be done, the woman exploded an Improvised Explosive Device [IED] concealed under her hijab. The bomb killed her instantly and injured five policemen, a callous and futile waste of human life. On the same day, terrorists also hurled an IED into the St. Charles Catholic Church at Sabon Gari, Kano. Five persons died in this attack but it was not clear if a female perpetrated it.
The following day, Monday, two female suicide bombers struck again in Kano city. In one incident, a young woman entered a kerosene queue at the NNPC mega filling station at Hotoro. As dozens of hapless women stood in the queue, she exploded a bomb that killed her and three other persons while sixteen others sustained injuries. The police later said the bomber had hoped to trigger a conflagration. Her hopes were thwarted because there was a security barricade with many policemen on duty at the station.
The same day, another young woman who had her body laced with explosives attempted to enter a shopping mall in Kano. The attack took place at the Kano International Trade Fair ground, Zoo Road, behind the sprawling Shoprite Mall. The female bomber was estimated to be 19 years old. While security men were searching her at the mall’s entrance she blew herself up. No other person died but six others including two policemen sustained injuries in that incident.
On Wednesday last week, yet another heinous attack, again by a female suicide bomber, took place in Kano city. It took place at the campus of the Kano State Polytechnic where graduating students had congregated around a notice board to see their National Youth Service Corps [NYSC] postings. The students had received text messages from the school’s authorities telling them to check their service postings on the notice board. As they did so, a young woman snuggled into their midst and exploded a bomb that killed her and two other students while seven others sustained injuries.
These tragic, heinous, atrocious, ignoble, abominable, cowardly and  unconscionable attacks at innocent citizens using female suicide bombers was a new dimension to terrorist insurgency in Nigeria.  It was a calculated attempt to ruin the Sallah festival, to snuff out as many innocent lives as possible, to strike terror into the hearts of educational institutions in order to thwart Western education, to continue the attempt at polarizing the community through attacks on worship centers, and to burn down whole city wards by setting large petrol filling stations on fire. It is an ignoble goal which only the most evil mind could conjure up.
There was reason to believe that terrorists had hoped to create mayhem well beyond Kano city during the Sallah week. The same day as the Polytechnic attack, policemen in Funtua town, Katsina State intercepted a man in a Honda CRV car as he travelled together with a woman and a 10 year old girl child. A search soon discovered that the little girl had powerful explosive belts strapped to her waist. The two adults made an attempt to escape but were apprehended with the help of citizens who blocked their path with other cars.
Among many others, President Goodluck Jonathan condemned the multiple terrorist attacks in Kano. He described them as shocking, callous and reprehensible and regretted that they took place while the Muslim community was celebrating the holy festival of Eid el Fitri. Jonathan described the deployment of young women as suicide bombers as “a new low in the inhuman campaign by terrorists and an expression of utter disregard for the dignity of the female gender as well as a wicked exploitation of the girl-child.”
If anything, he understated it. While no one has as yet claimed responsibility for the evil attacks that took place during the Eid period, suspicion naturally falls on Boko Haram, the violent sect that has condemned Western education, used suicide bombers in the past and that has shown the most callous disregard for human life. Even though there have been many suicide attacks in this country since the insurgency began, almost all the bombers were known to be male. An exception was the attack on the military post at Gombe three months ago when a female suicide bomber blew herself up when she was stopped from entering the base.
The resort to the use of female bombers, for that matter very young ones, may be seen by the perpetrators as a clever ploy to beat eagle-eyed security men but in reality, it is a sign of desperation that the all-male bombing squad had failed to achieve their aim of wrecking the country. Deploying female suicide bombers will not achieve the goal either. Instead, it will end the normal security man’s assumption that women are more gentle and compassionate than men and are much less inclined to perpetrate evil. It will necessitate a closer security scrutiny of all women, a cultural disaster for the community.
We therefore urge all parents to be alive to their responsibilities and to be on the lookout for anyone who might try to lure their wards into the criminal enterprise of suicide bombing. The authorities too should step up education and enlightenment in all vulnerable communities to the danger posed by this ugly new phenomenon. We are rest assured that like all previous desperate gambits, it will fail to achieve its nefarious purpose.