Anti-govt critic, Sheikh Gumi says Nigerian authorities know hideouts of killer-herdsmen, bandits

The Islamic cleric and member of Olusegun Obasanjo-led coalition against second term if President Muhammadu Buhari, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, is in the news again.

Almost two years after his coalition against reelection of Buhari had failed, the anti-Buhari critic says that the Federal Government knows the hiding place of the herdsmen and bandits involved in clashes with farmers, kidnappings and other criminal activities across the country.

His bombshell was coming weeks after the Media Office of the President alerted members of the public on plots by some elements to run campaign of calumny using the media especially those in the online media against President Muhammadu Buhari’s government.

The Department of State Security (DSS) had also released similar apart on how some elements was plotting to incite ethnic and religious violence I’m the country.

Shortly after both alerts, what appeared to be actualisation of the predicted threats came in the Bishop Matthew Kukah’s calling for coup against the government even as he made serious allegation of nepotism.

He said a non-Northern Muslim as President would not not have done up to what he believed Northern Muslim President Buhari had done before he would be overthrown or there would be war.

Kukah, who like Gumi belonged to the same Obasanjo-led coalition against Buhari’s reelection of 2019, went ahead to make religious crisis incitement when he said Christian has no pool of blood like Islam describing it as violent religion, a particular part of the Christmas message that nearly caused religious uprising as the polity became charged when Muslim Solidarity Forum (MSF) hit back asking him to leave Sokoto State peacefully or face their wrath until the Muslims were were calmed.

Since then, Sheikh Gumi has started from the Muslim side of the anti-Buhari offensive with latest being his public show of capacity to do “what government cannot do”, reaching killer bandits and cattle wrostlers parading themselves as herdsmen in the bushes in North West, North Central, South West and South East kidnapping and killing Nigerians including Fulani members of the society.

On Monday February 23, 2021, Sheikh Gumi made a serious accusation saying that the Muhammadu Buhari’s government was only now playing safe because it realised that the former approach of attacking the bandits frontally was not working. Earlier he had accused the military of triggering the banditry crisis as, according him, some Christian soldiers were killing Muslims in show of anger.

The controversial Islamic cleric said this on Channels TV “Politics Today” on Monday, when asked why he can locate and hold dialogue with the bandits, while government authorities cannot find them.

Gumi said: “They (government) know. They see them (bandits) by aerial view. But the military has learned its lesson.

“The first approach they had – when they go in and start killing – they realised is the wrong way and that they were producing a monster. They are now careful.

“The only element I am adding now is ‘look, don’t just wait and watch, go in and negotiate’.”

Gumi also said Fulani herders feel their existence is being threatened, so they cross borders to defend their kinsmen each time they are attacked.

He also noted that the Fulani bandits were not Boko Haram, noting, however, that “We have to be very careful.”

“If the pressure is too much, I am afraid they can be influenced by Boko Haram. We have seen the signs that Boko Haram is going to infiltrate them.”

The DEFENDER reports that what is seen as banditry today started as politically instigated ethnic discord where Hausa, having been made to see their differences from Fulani, were killing the Fulani in the North West and the Fulani groups would mobilise to defence themselves.