By Lillian Okenwa
In 2021, notable Islamic cleric, Sheik Abubakar Gumi announced that no school is safe until the federal government negotiates with bandits. He further revealed that there are about 100,000 armed bandits in the North-West alone. The Sheik has never disguised the fact that he knows these bandits and where they are.
The Kaduna-based Islamic scholar even said designating bandits as terrorists will result in more violence in the country. The bandits’ sympathetic cleric noted that: “They have lost their legitimate means of livelihood, I mean their cows through cattle rustling and extortion by security agencies. That has to be addressed as a means of genuine reconciliation and integration. They should have a sense of belonging.”
Asserting that the Fulani herdsmen involved in banditry are victims of circumstance, Sheikh Gumi restated his position during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on a Monday insisting that they should be granted amnesty.
Sometime in September 2021 the controversial cleric, condemned military offensive against armed herders and bandits operating in the North-west region of Nigeria and declared that it would not stop their activities.
With two mass kidnappings in the past week where hundreds of women and children were abducted in separate incidents — Over 100 women taken away on Sunday 3 March 2024 when suspected Boko Haram terrorists reportedly launched a ferocious attack on a Borno State Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp and on Thursday, March 7, 280 when pupils and teachers of Government Secondary School and LEA primary school at Kuriga, in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State, Sheik Gumi’s warning is clearly playing out.
But then, he has revealed his intention to dialogue with the bandits who abducted the schoolchildren and teachers. Why has the government turned blind eye to the fact that Gumi knows something we don’t? Or are we missing something?
In January, the former minister of communications and digital economy, Isa Pantami, blamed Nigerian police and other security agencies for failing to utilise data generated from National Identity Number (NIN) linked to the Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) in tracking kidnappers and curbing other crimes involving the use of a phone.
Likewise, popular Nigerian Senator Shehu Sani lambasted the National Commission Commission (NCC) and telecommunication companies in Nigeria over their apparent inefficiency in swiftly blocking phone numbers used by bandits and criminals. This is an indication that the government can tackle this scourge if it truly wants to.
According to a December 2023 report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) no fewer than 2,311 out of the total figure of 160,000 surrendered members of Boko Haram Terrorists have been rehabilitated and reintegrated into the society.
Condemning the spate of abductions by bandits, a civil society organisation, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) stated that the continuous attacks by terrorists on innocent victims initially displaced from their ancestral homes, showed that the reintegration of the so-called repentant terrorists was an exercise in futility.
The group said it was a fraud for anyone to say that persons who participated in massive killings of citizens can choose to repent and then some kind of reintegration programme has the potential capacity to turn them into better citizens.
Abuja lawyer, Nkereuwem Akpan on his part posited that: “Those who floated and started the whole issue of “Repentant Terrorists” are the real enemies of Nigeria. They simply gave the terrorists opportunity to regroup, rearm and return to Sambisa. The goal of every Boko Haram Jihadist is to turn Nigeria and indeed the world into one massive ‘”caliphate” where the existing world order is replaced by Shariah.
“This is common knowledge and the information is already out there in the public domain. So when Boko Haram Jihadist find themselves in position of weakness or imminent defeat , their beliefs allows them to pretend that they’re reformed and pretend that they’ve abandoned or forsaken their terrorists ideology. It is there in their teachings and everyone knows that it is called the ‘Doctrine of deception.’
“So firstly a Jihadist can never recant even if you tie him to the stake to shoot. In fact if you tie a Jihadist to the stake to shoot, he’s happy to die in martyrdom and go to “paradise”.
“No true Jihadist ever repents and the proponents of the policy knew what they were doing .They knew from day one that it was all about reinvigoration and relaunch of the Jihadist agenda of Boko Haram.
“So ultimately it is this DOCTRINE OF DECEPTION that leads to the mistrust and deep seated animosities between those who say they have “repented’ and those who know that the whole thing is a grand deception indoctrinated and pronounced in the Boko Haram Jihadist ideology
“Ultimately they pretend to have repented and we pretend to believe them when we laugh at their stupidity knowing what we know that they cannot repent .
“So let all of us keep pretending.”
In its OPED of 11 March 2024, titled: “Boko Haram’s attack on Borno IDP camp” Nigerian Tribune said: “It is disturbing that after two decades, the Nigerian state has yet to end the threats and challenges posed to national security by a pack of misguided young people seeking to overthrow the current order with a view to establishing an Islamic state in the country…”
Gumi’s outbursts has gone on for years but the authorities rather than take action allow him threaten Nigeria’s corporate existence hateful and inciting statements.
Recently, he derogatorily referred to Christians as ‘infidels’ and described the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Ezenwo Nyesom Wike as a satanic person. Sheik Gumi’s unchallenged tirade have also have also instigated other northern religious clerics to make disparaging and inciting statements. In a viral video, an Islamic cleric, Idris Tenshi declared that Nigeria’s First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu deserves to die for being a pastor.
Speaking in the Hausa language, Tenshi said: “Tinubu’s wife is an unbeliever and even among the unbelievers, she is a leader. She is among those that Allah has instructed us to kill because she is among the leaders of the unbelievers.” Although he has reportedly apologised, he was never arrested.
What exactly is Nnamdi Kanu doing in prison? Why is he there?
