Trusselen fra terrorisme henleder oppmerksomheten på forholdet mellom failed states og deres kolonier av emigranter i andre land. Det finnes 1 million nigerianere i USA. Hvordan skal amerikanske myndigheter holde styr på dem og deres gjøren og laden? Det samme gjelder Somalia, og Jemen. Alle tre regnes nå som failed states. Det betyr at man ikke kan regne med noe ansvarlig samarbeid med myndighetene i landet.

Det gjør ekstremist-kontroll og mestring uhyre vanskelig.

Once one of Africa’s greatest hopes, Nigeria, a nation about the size of Arizona, California and Nevada combined, has become an embarrassment, a lawless country run by plutocrats. Nigeria has all the makings of a failed state: Less than half of its 148 million people have access to running water, the World Health Organization and UNICEF’s Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation have reported. Electricity is epileptic. The K-12 and public university systems are frequently beset by strikes. Roads are poor, often unpaved and unpassable. Crime is the order of the day. Nigerian police officers don’t protect and serve; their uniforms allow them to exploit, extort and oppress. If victims are not from Nigeria’s small protected class, they are sometimes murdered. Borders with neighbors such as Niger, which is known to host al-Qaeda cells, are notoriously porous.

In 1996 and 1997, Berlin-based Transparency International ranked Nigeria the world’s most corrupt country. When Nigeria came in second behind Cameroon in 1998, some joked that Nigerians had bribed the Cameroonians.
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Officially, Nigeria is a democratic federal republic. Since adopting a U.S.-style government in 1999, the civilian administration has made some efforts to attack corruption in both the private and public sectors. But there is a growing feeling that the war on corruption is highly selective. It is still widely understood that certain politicians, business executives, and current and former high-ranking civil servants and military officers and their families are above the law. And elites are not subjected to the «indignity» of airport screenings.

Two decades ago Murtala Muhammed International began earning a reputation as a home to criminals who sometimes attacked planes as they taxied down runways. Robbers roamed the terminals and parking lot looking for prey. Even immigration and customs officers harassed passengers for bribes, sometimes threatening new arrivals with deportation or confiscation of their goods. From the mid-1990s to 2000, direct passenger flights between the United States and Nigeria were banned because of the Nigerian government’s failure to curb drug traffic.

To be sure, Nigeria has made improvements. In the airports, non-passengers’ entry to terminals is restricted and runways are more closely monitored. But a commentator noted Sunday in the Nigerian national daily newspaper the Guardian that lax security at airports still raises concerns. Airport personnel still sometimes extort passengers. And many elites and their guests are escorted to planes without being required to pass through metal detectors.

Lekan Oguntoyinbo is a freelance journalist and an assistant professor of journalism at Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo.

A failed bombing, an opportunity for Nigeria