Boko Haram: Inside the Mindset of a Nigerian Suicide Bomber

No one ever lacks a good reason for suicide. – Cesare Paverse Until June 16, 2011 suicide bombing was a distant phenomena few ever thought could occur in this realm. The harsh economic climate and heated geo-political space notwithstanding, it is very rare to see Nigerians, a people widely adjudged as the happiest on the face of the earth, take their own lives. It was even more unimaginable that someday, a Nigerian irrespective of whatever influence, will devise violent and extreme actions capable of brutally terminating his life, and extending the same deadly gestures to those around him. So when Umaru Abdulmutallab, a 22-year-old Nigerian from an affluent background attempted to become the country’s first suicide bomber on a US-bound flight on Christmas Day 2009, many among his compatriots questioned his nationality, others his sanity. Nigerians can’t be suicide bombers, it was reiterated.