On wednesday 31st March, 2010 at about 2.40pm at the Margaret Ekpo International Airport in Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria, a taxi driver drove an Audi 80 car with Cross River State registration number XA254KAM under a parked Boeing 737 passenger plane belonging to Arik Airlines, which was reportedly full of Lagos bound passengers. Report also had it that the driver targeted the fuel tank. He was reported to have sneaked into the airport through a nearby Airforce base. The taxi driver when arrested reportedly said "I am waging war against ungodly persons in Nigeria, the war have just started". Security analysts opined that if the car had hit the airplane's fuel tank, there would have been an explosion.
Prior to this incident, a Nigerian, Abdul Mutallab Farouk, who is presently standing trial in the United States of America(USA), was alleged to have attempted to blow up a passenger airplane with bombs sewn to his underpant on December 25th, 2009.
There was also report of a man who was blown up when bombs strapped to his body exploded before he could reach his target. This incident occured near a private television station in Lagos in November, 2009.
What all these point to is that suicide bombing is a possibility in Nigeria, despite the errorneous belief that the customs and traditions of peoples of Nigeria would not permit such extremity.
In this era of technology enhanced globalized interactions, it is a well known fact that the Nigerian citizenry have been exposed to negetaive and positive practices in other parts of the globe, these practices include suicide bombing, so it would be a serious and unpardonable error of judgement if the authorities in Nigeria would go to sleep believing that there can never be suicide bombing in the country as a way of registering grievances.
chidi opara reports would like at this point to appeal for more conscious efforts on the part of the government at conceptualization and actualization of people oriented policies and programmes to ameliorate the present large scale fraustrations amongst the populace which would act as boost to suicide bombing.
