..Advocates, amnesty, dialogue with bandits, terrorists
By Gabriel Udeh, Kaduna
Controversial popular Islamic scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, asserted that bandits terrorizing the northern region of Nigeria are going nowhere.
The cleric said the action of the military against the bandits and terrorists will only worsen the situation in the northern part of the country.
Gumi disclosed this in a post on his Facebook page titled ‘Zamfara: The Flaring Of Crisis’, military action against criminal herdsmen and bandits will not solve the security challenge, but “will only worsen the situation”.
The Islamic scholar berated the Federal Government for deploying Nigerian troops to the North to decimate the bandits and killer herdsmen.
The cleric stated this while reacting to a recent victory recorded by the military over bandit terrorists in Zamfara forests.
He claimed that the military action against the bandits and terrorists in Zamfara will not solve the security challenge, but will only worsen the situation.
He noted that the bandit terrorists are going nowhere and the action of the military will only worsen the situation in the northern part of the country.
Gumi said the security issue can only be resolved by active engagement of the government with the agitators, just as the ENDSARS agitation was managed.
The cleric further stated that dialoguing with the bandits and terrorists is one of the ways to stop the menace of banditry and kidnapping in the country.
He stated that granting amnesty to the criminals will stop the attack on residents in the North and the kidnap of school children in the region.
He asked the government to end the activities of bandits and killer herdsmen in the North the same way it addressed the Niger-Delta militants situation with amnesty.
“Every time they kindle the fire of war, Allah doth extinguish it; but they (ever) strive to do mischief on earth. And Allah loveth not those who do mischief.”
“Zamfara state is unique in many aspects. In early 2000 AD, the state ignited a wildfire of state constitutional amendments that accommodated the application of sharia law beyond personal law (i.e. marriages, divorce, and inheritance) to include the Islamic criminal law.
It was well received by the local populace with eleven other northern states adopting it. However, that the international community ruled by leaders that are promoting sodomy and lesbianism in the garment of secularism were at the forefront of fighting it.
In a short time, it became political and fizzled away.”
“If such shariah implementation move had concentrated in literacy and economic empowerment the kind of which we see in Saudi Arabia, with its rich resources, Zamfara would have become a shining example of the blend of a religiously modern state proud of its development and modesty.
Unfortunately, it turned out to became the den of criminality and instability in the region.”
“From the blues, in 2009 cattle rustling became rampant. Most of the cattle rustled were headed to the south in trailers where they are sold and slaughtered.
This massive movement of rustled cattle greatly reduced their population. Most of the rustling first affected the rural herdsmen and it became more elaborate in the north-western region.”
“Herdsmen were left with only one of three options. To join the rustlers or pay tribute to rustlers for protection or lose their cattle.
In 2014, the military ‘intervention’ in the Birnin-Gwari Forest to fight cattle rustling changed the headsmen into a resistance movement as many innocent Fulani Ruga settlements were murdered, men, women, and children in hundreds.”
“By 2015, banditry has replaced cattle raring that is becoming nearly impossible. Drugs were introduced into the herdsmen that are known to be illiterates or semi-illiterates.
The reaction of the town local vigilantes (a natural reaction to any communal aggression in self-defence) pitched the herdsman against the local rural helmets, villages, and adjacent towns to the forests as they are lynched and maimed when whenever they enter markets.
Therefore, everybody became an enemy and a target. Fulanis and other tribes, Muslims and non-Muslims were equally kidnapped for a ransom most of which goes to buying weapons.”
“Profiling of Fulani herdsmen became another motivative factor of more resistance and more kidnappings which has now led to their metamorphosis into the monster the nation is facing today.”
“We should also know that because of their educational status and lack of an effective unified leadership they have faced untold hardship at the hands of authorities where they were extorted and stereotyped.
It has been imprinted in the psyche of nomadic pastoralists that the authorities and their town dwellers are ‘evil people’ that should be resisted because they have no place to secure justice for their cases no matter how innocent they may be.”“With their acquisition of weapons, they realized how easy it became to be masters of their abode the forest, where no authority can venture into. This has emboldened them to further attack people for more ransoms to sustain their newfound reality.”
“Now with the prodding of the government to take more military actions of an already ugly situation whereby they were left to amass weapons, a huge military budget that is almost draining the economy to a standstill in the purchase of fighter aircraft and conducting military operations in the region has become to the authorities in their calculations a necessity.”
“Unfortunately, this is no solution or wisdom. When you don’t have the monopoly of the instruments of violence, then dialogue has the monopoly of resolving the conflict. This is what the UN is all about. i.e., Roundtable resolution of conflicts. What we are seeing is more than just criminals and criminality, yes it may have started as such but like any conflict, it is dynamic.”
