Kaduna Islamic scholar and sympathizer of bandits, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, has urged Nigerians not to vote for those who will fight bandits, rather negotiate with them.
As the wind of 2023 general election in Nigeria blows closer, the pro-bandit vocal cleric has taken to the podium to advise his congregation to vote only those that are sympathetic to the cause the bandits are fight for.
Gumi said they should vote for politicians who would negotiate with bandits, rather than waging war against them.
Gumi said this in his weekly congregational sermon he delivers at the Sultan Bello Mosque Kaduna, sandwiched by his ardent followers.
He said some politicians are waiting patiently to be elected so that they can unleash attack on bandits. in his speech, Gumi re-emphasized, and said ‘our brothers’, referring to the bandits.
As northwest Nigeria suffers from insecurity and devastation from herder-farmers crisis, culminating to cattle rustling and then all-out banditry attacks – in hinterlands, villages and major cities, whereas, in the northeast, over 35,000 deaths inflicted by Boko Haram, have been recorded and still counting, from 2011 to 2022.
In the case of banditry, kidnapping and criminal attacks, Zamfara, Niger, Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi and Kaduna states happen to be the worst hit states in Nigeria, as over 40% of cultivated farms and over 55% of land for agriculture have been taken over by bandits.
In just the months of January to March 2022, 2,968 people were killed while 1,484 were abducted in Nigeria, according to Nigeria Security Tracker (NST). a security watchdog and data collecting organisation on insecurity activities across Nigeria resulting to death.
A lot of politicians from the north, the region suffering the most from banditry attack, have been very uncomfortable with Gumi’s romance with bandits but have kept mum to wanton lost of lives and properties in the region, for fear of being killed.
Different organisations have called for Gumi’s arrest, prior to the arrest of Tukur Mamu, the self-acclaimed Kaduna Train hostage negotiator, a personal aid to the cleric. Mamu was narrowed on as a person of interest by the Department of State Services (DSS) and was intercepted by Nigeria’s foreign partners at Cairo, Egypt on 6th September, 2022, while on his way to Saudi Arabia.
