Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, an Islamic cleric, said on Sunday that labeling bandits as terrorists would mean the end of Nigeria as a sovereign and united nation.
Mr. Gumi, a retired army military officer and mufti, admitted that the carnage wreaked by marauding bandits in Nigeria’s northwest constituted terrorism, but that President Muhammadu Buhari’s labeling them as such will have unintended effects that will consume the entire country.
“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,” Mr. Gumi said in a Facebook post on Sunday night.
The cleric warned that the moment bandits are designated as terrorists, “Islamic for that matter, the direct foreign Jihadist movements will set in in force.”
“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. Already these deadly terrorist groups are fighting for the soul of these bandits,” he said. “This 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.”
Separatist agitators in the South-East and South-West would readily seize on the lawlessness sweeping the northern areas, according to Mr. Gumi, because Boko Haram has already enslaved the North-East.
“NE is already and is still devastated by this madness for over 12 years. If we allow, terror, to set in into these raw naïve unexposed bandits, NW will be in ruins sooner than later.
“Already IPOB are destroying SE, and Igboho has set the ball of confusion rolling in SW. For those who want to destroy the NW, it’s a good recipe.
“Turn bandits into religious zealots. Tell me, what then remains of Nigeria?” Mr. Gumi said.
The mufti also dismissed his critics as “illiterates” for their failure to see his position since he started holding talks with bandits in their hideouts and publicly advocating for a civil resolution to their deadly exploits.
For his blatant affiliation with bandits murdering and abducting victims across the North-West, presidential spokesperson Femi Adesina recently labeled Mr. Gumi a “terrorist lover.”
Schoolchildren were kidnapped by the bandits, forcing school closures in Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Niger, and Zamfara. President Buhari was also asked by the Nigerian National Assembly to label them terrorists.
The bandits hijacked a Nigerian Air Force plane in Zamfara in July, then stormed the Nigerian Defence Academy in Kaduna the following month.
