FG Should Heed Gumi’s Advice, Grant Bandits National Honours

Sheikh Ahmad Abubakar Gumi is an Islamic cleric, scholar and former military officer with the rank of captain in the Nigeria Army. He served in the Nigerian Army Medical Corp (NAMC) as a medical officer.  He is by no means a riff-raff or an irritating semi-literate cleric who barely understands the implications of what he says, preaches or does. He is well-connected and has links within and outside of government. Ignore him at your own peril.

There can be only one explanation for the longevity of his devil-may-care outbursts and reckless utterances on issues threatening to destroy the nation. He speaks the minds of those who are not bold enough to publicly make the kind of proclamations he makes regularly.

Nigeria is bedeviled with hydra-headed security challenges. All kinds of non-state actors are holding the nation by the jugular. By far the deadliest gangsters around the nation now are the so-called bandits.  They remain bandits in the eyes of the federal government, just because the likes of Sheikh Gumi and their cohorts in government are against branding them as terrorists which is what they are. The federal government believes anybody can be labeled terrorist but not their beloved bandits.

The Sheikh has criminalized everybody except the bandits and believes, rather than treat them as the terrorists that they are, the media and other well-meaning people who have remained embarrassed by the federal government’s unwillingness to declare a full-scale war against this group, are greater threats to Nigeria.

Last month, Sheikh Gumi warned that declaring bandits as terrorists will come at a price: the end of Nigeria.

Gumi, in a statement titled, ‘Declaring bandits as terrorists will come with a price,’ said the moment bandits are termed terrorists; the direct foreign Jihadist movements will set in in force. He said this may be found palatable and attractive by many teeming unemployed youths.

“Yet again, the only helpful part that is against bandits is that no other than them are attracted to join them in the NW because of its ethnic tinge and coloration. However, the moment they are termed terrorist – Islamic for that matter, the direct foreign Jihadist movements will set in in force. And many teeming unemployed youths may find it palatable and attractive. Shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ plus AK47 against a ‘secular,’ immoral society where impunity reigns are the magnet for extremists and downtrodden – the majority of our youth.

“…Already these deadly terrorist groups are fighting for the soul of these bandits. This will give criminality a spiritual cover and remove the stigma of discrediting them with such crimes since now they are fighting a ‘Jihad’ as they will claim. In such a situation, does the larger society – as it is – have the moral high ground to fight back? This is the most probable consequence, the price of which is not worth it. Nothing stops the kinetic actions from going on without the controversy of semantics.”

The same warped logic and rationality the political and religious elite in the north advanced when Boko Haram started. Today, we all know better.

There is no kind of mumbo jumbo in the name of rationality that Sheikh will not advance in his bid to protect and placate these criminals. Is Gumi telling the world the reason Boko Haram got support from other terror groups was because they were branded as terrorists or that even as we speak, these bandits are not already getting support from outside of our shores?

Gumi had once compared bandits to Niger Delta militants and asked that a federal ministry be established to address their grievances and that of killer Fulani herders.

For a man of his educational background and experience, he continues every time he speaks to leave little doubt as to his links and affinity with this murderous group.

Last week, Sheikh Gumi took his advocacy a notch higher when he said bandits require money, land compensation to stop killings.

This self-proclaimed mediator for bandits said only religion can be used to pacify bandits to embrace peace.

Gumi said bandits have refused to end hostilities against the Nigerian government because they were not given land and “enough money”.

Gumi said past attempts “to broker peace” with the bandits failed because they were not compensated “with lands or cattle or money big enough to help halt hostilities.”

He added that sometimes the government would “just give them (bandits) a million or two million and get their weapons without even looking at how they survive.”

The cleric, in a live stream on his Facebook page, said only religion can be used to pacify them to embrace peace.

It is obvious that Gumi is either above the law or he has the support of the federal government. He has strolled in and out of these so-called bandits hideouts sometimes with security escorts to negotiate with a group of people who have rendered many homeless, orphans, widows and widowers. Yet, he is moving around free and allowed to make utterances that should offend the sensibilities of Nigerians.

Gumi should not be taken at face value. He is educated and informed enough to understand the terrain he operates. This also may have informed the decision of the government to shy away from wielding the big stick when it comes to fighting bandits, kidnappers, killer Fulani herders and addressing the in-your-face insults Gumi continues to dish out to Nigerians.

Recall that sometime in August, this year, Garba Shehu, presidential spokesman, had claimed that what the government of President Muhammadu Buhari had done to bandits is worse than declaring them terrorists.

So, why not designate them as such if the federal government is convinced they are not receiving preferential treatment?

Shehu had said even the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) that has been outlawed does not have such an order against it, adding that there is not any preferential treatment for the bandits.

“What the Buhari administration has done to the arms-wielding bandits is worse than being declared as terrorists. Do you know that there is a subsisting order by the President that any arms-wielding, AK-47 bandits should be shot on sight,” he said.

What he did not tell us is why the same government that would not label them terrorists can convince us that they are getting worse treatment than Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Adeyemo (aka Sunday Igboho) or how many killer-Fulani herders and bandits are in court like the duo.

The easiest indication to dispel the claim by Shehu is simply the leeway that Gumi enjoys.  For as long as the Sheikh enjoys the immunity to speak, act and project the interests of these men who have brought down a military aircraft, continued the killings all over the North West, North Central and some parts of southern Nigeria, and neither Gumi nor the so-called repentant militants and insurrectionists in the North East, have been prosecuted, then there is more to this than meets the eyes.

Shehu hit an all-time low with his comparisons when he said, “I am saying yes, IPOB has been proscribed by law of the land, there is no shoot-on-sight order on IPOB. There is nothing to suggest that these bandits are treated preferentially.”

The federal government can spare us this. Nigerians know better. Perhaps, it will not be out of place to suggest that the federal government should heed Gumi’s admonition and build houses for the bandits, give them dollars and national honours. I suggest Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (CFR) for Gumi and Member of the Order of the Niger (MON) for the bandits. If only this would end this debacle and save Nigerians from this cocktail of bizarreness, hogwash and inanities that currently assail us.  

 

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