KADUNA: Why abducted Afaka students have yet to be released — Gumi

POPULAR Islamic cleric, Sheik Gumi has explained why bandits are reluctant to surrender their arms and embrace the negotiations being offered them by some state governors.

Gumi said the recent shoot-on-sight order given by Buhari amid spate of abductions that rocked the Northwest region of the country made the bandits to have misgivings about the sincerity of the government to enter into peace talks with them.

The Islamic scholar also noted that this is order is standing in the way of negotiating the rescue of dozens students abducted from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization, Kaduna.
Gumin said this in an interview with Daily Trust yesterday.

He said that in his interaction with some bandits, he has been able to identify the bandit leader responsible for the attack on the Federal College in Kaduna but the shoot-on-sight order of the president has frustrated their physical meeting.

“Those groups we met identified him but we could not reach out to him because of the security implication since the government gave shoot-on-sight order and then the government said no negotiation. So, I don’t want us to go into the bush and the government will think we are encouraging them,” Gumi said.

Gumi said that he has met over 80 per cent of the leaders of bandits terrorising the northern part of the country and that he and his team would have succeeded in persuading the bandits into a peace deal if they had received encouragement from the government.

The cleric also disclosed that he and his team have credible intel through his various peace talks, that can assess and outrightly identify criminal acts and the person responsible.

“If we had encouragement, we would have met all the leaders. All those we met usually offered to support us to negotiate on our behalf, just like what happened in Niger State.

“Presently, our ability has reached the extent that we can identify who is involved in any criminal act. We have identified the leader of those who took the students but he has never attended any peace meeting with us,” he said.