Sheikh Ahmad Gumi.
Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi has advised Northerners to vote for politicians who will not fight bandits but negotiate with them and grant the bandits' demands for there to be peace across the region.
Gumi described the bandits as "our warriors in the forest."
The Islamic cleric remarked in one of his recent sermons, that Nigeria's security issues cannot be solved through military action against criminal herdsmen and bandits, rather it “will only worsen the situation”.
“Don't vote for those who will fight bandits. The fighters are our warriors in the forest……. Our people in the forest.
“So vote for those who after attaining power will call and negotiate with our people (bandits) to give them what they want for peace to reign,” Gumi said.
The Islamic scholar urged the Nigerian government to invest more in building schools for terrorists and bandits than in security hardware.
While citing the recent victory of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Gumi noted that no military, especially in a poor economy can win guerrilla warfare.
He has on several occasions asked the Nigerian government to grant amnesty to bandits as it did to Niger Delta militants.
Gumi was heavily criticized in the past for what many Nigerians viewed as his sympathetic stance towards the bandits who have continued to kill, maim, burn and sack communities, especially in northern Nigeria.
The Islamic cleric visited the bandits a couple of times and met with suspected terrorists in different forests in Zamfara and Kaduna states in what he claimed was an effort to broker a peace deal with them.
Politics and Opinion.
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