9/11 and the politics of counter-terrorism: writing temporality in(to) counter-terrorism rhetoric and discourse in Nigeria

Counter-terrorism has been described as a “powerful political discourse and a set of institutional practices with its own assumptions, symbolic systems, and rhetorical modes and tropes” (Jackson 2005). Indeed, more recently, much accepted knowledges and practices around counter-terrorism are largely informed by the events of 9/11 and the accompanying “global war on terror”, thus reproducing itself in different contexts with potentially varied consequences (Jarvis 2008; Toros 2017). In this piece, I briefly explore the way in which 9/11 functions as a discursive resource in framing – and responding to – specific terrorist threats in Nigeria. I attempt this analysis by looking at rhetorical statements and texts developed by the Nigerian federal government. This, indeed, is part of my PhD thesis which offers a compelling interpretivist assessment of Nigeria’s counter-terrorism strategy.