Why Sheikh Gumi suspended meeting with bandits – Aide

AIDE to popular Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, Mallam Salisu Hassan, has explained why there is relative lull in the campaign by his principal for blanket amnesty for bandits terrorising the Northwest region of th country.

Hassan also stated why Sheikh Gumi has stopped his peripatetic travelling across the Northwest forests to negotiate with bandits in an interview with SaharaReporters yesterday.

Gumi’s aide noted that his principal stopped negotiating with bandits because the Kaduna State government has clearly stated that it’s not interested in the move.

“No, it is not that Sheikh is busy. The problem is that since the government is not interested in reconciling with those people.

“So Sheikh just tried to have some other way so that he can achieve his goals. The Kaduna State government said they are not interested in negotiations,” Hassan said.

Prior to this time, the Islamic scholar used to be at the vanguard of negotiation with bandits in the forests particularly when there was mass abduction.

Sheikh Gumi met bandits in the forests of Zamfara, Niger and Kaduna states to negotiate the release of abducted victims.

But the Kaduna State Government, under the watch of Governor Nasir el-Rufai, has never hidden its aversion to negotiation with bandits.

The government has stated that anyone caught negotiating with bandits on it’s behalf will be prosecuted.

el-Rufai has also stated that any bandit caught in the state will be killed.

He noted that bandits have lost their rights to live having challenged the sovereignty of Nigeria noting that they deserve to be “wiped out”

The governor restated this two days ago during a dialogue tagged: “Financing Safe Schools: Creating Safe Learning Communities”.

He said the military should storm forests where bandits stay and bomb the whole place, in order to eliminate them.

el-Rufai noted that his position is shared by all the governors of the states across the Federation.

He stressed that the governors are on the same page on killing bandits.

He said, “Our position as governors and we are unanimous in this because we, the northern states’ governors, met with the president on this subject, our unanimous position is to wipe out the bandits.

“We must go into these forests; nobody living in that forest is innocent and just kill them all. It is the only way to end this.”