Kaduna-based Islamic cleric, Sheikh Abubakar Ahmad Gumi, has made powerful revelations on the security issues facing the country.
Sheikh Gumi, in an interview on Saturday, January 23, said that from his study and conversation with these supposed criminals, he discovered that most of them were actually victims of military incursions and crimes they are now into.
The cleric who recently returned from a trip to northern Nigeria on a campaign to pacify herdsmen said that most of the herdsmen were pushed to the forest due to the government’s alleged reluctance to deal with deteriorating security in the region, and in order to protect themselves, became criminals themselves.
Sheikh Gumi said most of these bandits were pushed into banditry by criminals who once attacked them.
He said the herders are not in any way different from persons who reside in town and urban areas as some of them speak English with fluency.
He said: “These are people who are not different from the folks in town, only that they are nomadic. So, it has reached the extent that they cannot go into towns and markets because they will be lynched.
“They have been confined to the bushes and so they find themselves pressed to harm the society just the way the society is harming them.”
Gumi said the cattle rearers blame the government for its lack of presence evident in the unavailability of basic social amenities like water and electricity.
His words: “When we speak with them, they say they blame the government. Well, the government has to be blamed because they need to take proactive steps to see that there are amenities in their area; they don’t have electricity, even water, there is no presence of government there. So these are the things the government needs to do to end this insecurity.”
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