Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, a well-known Islamic scholar located in Kaduna State, has disclosed what bandits told him their grievances are about during his prior meeting with them.
However, in a recent interview with Vanguard, Sheikh Gumi asserted that the best approach to deal with the bandits is to have a roundtable discussion and claimed that the ‘criminals’ had complained to him that the government had forced them out of their ancestral houses.
He claimed that they also complained about being killed and pummeled by aircraft, and that once they gave themselves up, security personnel picked them up and executed them extrajudicially.
They also claimed that following the negotiations, the amnesty scheme failed. For our benefit, they are not questioning the legitimacy of the government. Although it is a plus, there is still a risk because terrorists are attempting to enter them. Therefore, Sheikh Gumi told Vanguard, We either win them over to our side or we let the terrorists hijack them, and obviously that will be another tale”.