Sheikh Gumi wants amnesty for bandits

Respected Islamic scholar and cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi has renewed his constant calls for the Federal Government to grant amnesty to bandits.

Sheikh Gumi is of the belief that doing so will ensure eradication of terrorism, kidnapping, banditry, different kinds of criminality especially in the Northern parts of Nigeria.

According to Sheikh Gumi, the war against banditry will be fruitless unless the Federal Government grants them amnesty as it did to the Niger Delta militants.

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The cleric disclosed this in a post on his Facebook page entitled: ‘Zamfara: The Flaring Of Crisis.’

Sheikh Gumi warned that military action against armed herders would worsen the insecurity situation rather than solve it.

“By 2015, banditry has replaced cattle raring that is becoming nearly impossible. Drugs were introduced into the herdsmen that are known to be illiterates or semi-illiterates.

“The reaction of the town local vigilantes (a natural reaction to any communal aggression in self-defence) pitched the herdsman against the local rural helmets and villages.

They even go into towns to the forests where they are lynch and maimed when whenever they enter markets.

“Therefore, everybody became an enemy and a target. Fulanis and other tribes, Muslims and non-Muslims were equally kidnapped for a ransom most of which goes to buying weapons.”

“Profiling of Fulani herdsmen became another motivative factor of more resistance and more kidnappings which has now led to their metamorphosis into the monster the nation is facing today.”

“We should also know that because of their educational status and lack of an effective unified leadership they have faced untold hardship at the hands of authorities where they were extorted and stereotyped.

“It has been imprinted in the psyche of nomadic pastoralists that the authorities and their town dwellers are ‘evil people’ that should be resisted because they have no place to secure justice for their cases no matter how innocent they may be.

“With their acquisition of weapons, they realized how easy it became to be masters of their abode the forest, where no authority can venture into.

“This has emboldened them to further attack people for more ransoms to sustain their newfound reality.

“Now with the prodding of the government to take more military actions of an already ugly situation whereby they were left to amass weapons.

“This is what the UN is all about. i.e., roundtable resolution of conflicts. What we are seeing is more than just criminals and criminality, yes it may have started as such but like any conflict, it is dynamic.”

“The danger we face now is ideological demagogues changing the narrative. They are trying hard to infiltrate the herdsmen.

“And we know their objectives. They want to destroy all modern governments by fighting the military and now in the recent cajoling of local populations, they have tormented before to join them in the struggle.”

“Let us face the reality, these herdsmen are going nowhere, and they are already in battle gear, and we know our military very well, so before things get messy, we need cold brains to handle this delicate situation.

“Military actions in the past have worsen the situation stimulating herdsmen resistance. Any more action will push them closer to religious fanaticism.

“It gives them protection from discrediting them as thieves and also reinforce their mobilization of gullible young unemployed youth as we saw with BH.”

“I have met many of the bandit leaders to see a way out of this gridlock. I have talked to the political class and security agents.