The controversial Islamic Cleric Ahmad Gumi has declared that sending credible Islamic scholars to armed groups hiding in the forests remains best way and option to address the menace being caused by the terrorist.
Penpushing reports that Gumi made the declaration in a short statement he posted on Facebook on Wednesday arguing that military strategy alone is insufficient and call for non-violent engagements, such as religious education, for ending banditry in the country.
The Kaduna based Islamic leader added that non-kinetic engagement would reduce the need for military operations, lamenting that public perception overlooked the root causes of the insurgency.
“Since 2021—now almost six years since we began preaching to bandits—one cannot help but imagine what could have been achieved if many credible Islamic scholars had been systematically deployed to engage bandits across the North-west, teaching them the sanctity of human life, the inviolability of people’s property, and the Islamic prohibition of killing and oppression’, Gumi said.
“Very few people seem to understand that many of these bandits are themselves products of the same ignorance, deprivation, and social neglect that have allowed the crisis to flourish,” he noted, adding, “People are the victims of their own prejudice!”, he added
Penpushing further reports that Gumi made several self-funded and state-supported peace missions to bandits’ camps in early 2021, while it would be recalled that during a February 2021 trek into the Dutsen Magaji forest in Niger State, following the abduction of students from Government Secondary School Kagara, he was received by heavily armed young men carrying AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenade launchers.
The cleric in the camps, set up makeshift preaching points, where he preached that injustice suffered by herders did not justify taking innocent human lives, ambushing commuters, or raiding villages.
Penpushing also reports that Gumi during the forest meetings, educated the bandits that in Islam, there is no justification at all for reprisal attacks, killings, kidnappings, and rape, and urged them to seek formal Islamic education, observe daily prayers, and drop their weapons.
The Islamic cleric equally advocated a federal rehabilitation model similar to the Niger Delta Presidential Amnesty Programme, stressing that offering amnesty, schools, basic healthcare, and integrating repentant pastoralists into security roles—such as forest guards—would hit banditry faster than airstrikes.
Penpushing reports that while critics have expressed concern that negotiating with criminal elements legitimises terrorism, Gumi maintains that ignoring the socio-economic and educational deficits driving young men into the woods will only prolong the conflict.
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