By Akinwale Kasali
The recent statement by controversial Islamic Scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, warning President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration against declaring bandits terrorists, has been condemned by foremost Media Group, Journalists For Democratic Rights, JODER.
Gumi had warned that declaring Bandits terrorists would destroy Nigeria.
The Executive Director of the Group, Adewale Adeoye, in a statement, said that it is so unfortunate that Sheikh Gumi could be defending armed groups in the country.
Adeoye stressed that it is disheartening that despite the havoc, killings and illicit crimes the bandits engage in, someone would still support and back their atrocities. He said it shows the height at which we have lost our values as a nation.
“I do not know why Sheik Gumi should portray himself as someone defending armed groups from his part of the country. I find it difficult to endure his consistent positions on armed insurgency on the North East.
“I think his utterances show that the bandits have some support in high places. This is something many have guessed, but Sheik Gumi makes it a fact. Bandits not being called terrorist is a new term associated with Political forces in Nigeria. Banditry and terrorism in terms of actions, operations and their activities are the same in form and even in content.
“To attempt to separate Bandits from terrorist is a strange concept because terrorism is also an act of banditry. Terrorism apply banditry as a weapon and Bandits employ terrorism as a weapon.
“He is telling us that if they are categorised as terrorists, Nigeria will burn. He appears to know the mindset of the bandits and that clearly raises suspicion as to whether he has any network with them.
“I think Nigeria has become so fragile and dangerously so. Unfortunately those who are expected to be peace makers are putting fuel in the rage. Sheikh Gumi’s utterances embolden terrorism and gives backing to illegal conducts which is quite unfortunate”, Adeoye says.
The Medical Doctor-turned Islamic Scholar in a statement titled, ‘Declaring Bandits As Terrorists Will Come With A Prize,’ said the moment bandits are termed terrorists, the direct foreign Jihadist movements will set in in force, which he said may be found palatable and attractive by many teaming unemployed youths.
The statement read:
“Nobody doubts that sentimentalism today overrides sensibility in our polity. For the sake of posterity, some people will have to speak out.
“The acts the bandits are committing now in NW have gradually over time become tantamount to terrorism because wherever innocent people are fatal victims it’s pure terrorism. Yet, innocence these days is relative. We agreed if their children and women are also killed, they are guilty by association or collateral damage, so also the bandits may think the same way. It’s right for vigilantes to lynch Fulanis herdsmen or anyone that looks like them by profiling but wrong for the herdsmen to ransack villages in retribution. They are pushed to believe it is an existential war and in war, ethics are thrown to the winds.
“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 teaming 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”.
Gumi added that already, these deadly terrorist groups are fighting for the soul of these bandits, which he says 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- has 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.”
It would be recalled that speakers of the 36 State Houses of Assembly in Nigeria last Saturday called on the Federal Government to declare bandits and kidnappers as terrorists, adding that kidnapping and banditry should be dealt with decisively.
