Gumi accuses military of killing civilians in alleged bombardment of bandits’ camp

An Islamic scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi has accused the Nigerian Military of murdering innocent civilians after its alleged bombardment of bandits’ camp with two notorious bandits reported killed at Zamfara forest last week.

Gumi made this assertion on Tuesday via a statement issued by his media consultant, Tukur Mamu in Kaduna, which noted that innocent lives were lost during raids by the Nigerian military.

The cleric also reiterated the need for dialogue in order to win the war against terrorism and banditry.

He recalled that during one of their visits to a forest in Niger State, bandits showed them a whole settlement that had nothing to do with banditry, bombarded by the air force.

“The simple question is that we should ask ourselves from these reports that they are saying that they’ve bombarded this camp and that camp, is there any evidence on the ground?

“There is a particular forest we visited in Niger State. The whole of the settlement had been bombarded. This settlement has nothing to do with bandits. In fact, they showed us two wells full of innocent people, dead, casualties of these bombardments.

“That’s exactly what these bandits were telling us. They said whenever we hear the sound of an aircraft, we run to our caves and then run. If they will succeed in killing anybody, it is the small children, the wives or the cows.

“That’s their own testimony. So, you can imagine a country where, for example, bandits would gather in a forest and be celebrating. You don’t even have the intelligence to track them and eliminate them. Then, you say you will succeed in killing them.

“I hear them yesterday celebrating the reported death of bandit leader. So, for example, if you kill one bandit leader and another one emerges, what benefit did you derive?

“For example, you killed Dogo Gide, a person more dreaded than him emerged. When they killed Buharin Daji, Turji emerged. So, what’s the success there? And for us to even be celebrating. There is nothing to celebrate, the only thing we can celebrate is that if our military succeeds in crushing them all and they cannot,” Gumi stated.

On the issue of dialogue with the bandits, the cleric clarified that it does not signal weakness on the part of the Federal Government since there was a precedent by the late President Umaru Yar’Adua who signed a peace pact with the Niger Delta militants.

Read also: Gumi dismisses reports on brother’s abduction

“You have to address so many economic issues and so many issues of injustice. And then for you to pursue the path of dialogue. It is not a sign of weakness. That’s what Yar’Adua initiated in Niger Delta.

“Do you think the silence we used to hear now from Niger Delta is because of guns? Is it because of military might? There are many top militant commanders that have been on the payroll of the Federal Government for the past eight years. They are the richest now, top militants, commanders.

“But this is a silent issue that nobody knows. But that is the reason why you can explore oil and then exploit it. The only reason why their own is different is because the Federal Government knows that if they didn’t do something there, it will affect the whole economy. That’s the issue,” he added.

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