The Federal Government has revealed that it has invited the controversial Kaduna-based Islamic cleric, Ahmad Gumi, for questioning regarding his recent comments on the activities of bandits in the country.
Mohammed Idris, the Minister of Information and Orientation, made this announcement while addressing journalists at the State House in Abuja on Monday.
Gumi had previously criticized the Federal Government’s approach of using force to secure the release of kidnapping victims, suggesting instead that the government should engage with the bandits to understand their grievances and provide them with better living conditions.
In his remarks, Gumi stated: “These bandits are getting more vicious. Before they were not doing this. They are heading to softer targets and we can only attribute this to the kinetic approach. Now we are fighting bandits. They are anonymous. You cannot fight someone you don’t even know.”
He further advocated for a non-kinetic approach similar to the amnesty initiative implemented for militants in the Niger Delta, emphasizing the importance of offering incentives for bandits to abandon violence and embrace peace.
Gumi also highlighted the need for better intelligence gathering to identify the leaders and foot soldiers of the bandits. He claimed that while the leaders of the bandits are known, their foot soldiers operate anonymously, making it challenging to combat their activities effectively.
“The government, everybody knows their leader. In fact, there is a book, ‘I am a Bandit’, by one Murtala, an academic. He listed more than 160 bandit leaders. We know their leaders by their names but you don’t know their foot soldiers,” Gumi stated.