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LongRead… Gumi: Mediator or Pretender? A chronicle of the man
In the past one month, renowned Islamic cleric and preacher, Sheikh Ahmad Abubakar Gumi, has effortlessly put himself in the forefront as, arguably, the most talked about Nigerian alive presently.
Gumi has hugged the limelight, no thanks to the media that has consistently lapped up on his crisis management skills as he has become the contemporary interface between Nigerians and terrorists that are threatening to turn Nigeria into another Somalia.
Gumi has shown himself to be the big time negotiator, regaling the country of his forays to enemy territories just as he markets the terms and conditions of his hosts to the Nigerian leadership.
He has been able to do what the Nigerian military has had difficulties accomplishing, that is, exploiting available intelligence to traverse the vast forests of the North-East to meet with the bandits, preaching blanket amnesty and claiming that the turncoats were no criminals but victims of circumstance.
In the beginning
For those who do not know, Sheikh Gumi is not your regular nondescript and ordinary Islamic cleric. He is an informed Islamic scholar.
He attended the prominent Sardauna Memorial College (SMC), Kaduna State, for his senior secondary education, from where he went to the prestigious Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, where he studied medicine.
After his graduation, he was enlisted into the Nigeria Defence Academy (NDA) where he rose through the ranks to become a Captain.
He served in the Nigerian Army Medical Corp (NAMC) as a medical officer, and after his retirement, Gumi moved to Saudi Arabia to further his Islamic education at the Umm al-Qura University where he studied Islamic Jurisprudence and Tafsir.
His father, the late Sheikh Abubakar Gumi, was a renowned Islamic scholar and the leader of the Izalla Muslim sect in the country. The father was also a controversial and religiously radical who went against the authorities, organized protest marches in Kano and Kaduna State against any perceived injustice.
As a young man, Gumi obviously followed the pathway of his late father. Even before his father died and he became the leader of the Izalla sect, Gumi had been a radical and controversial figure as he also led the youth wing of the sect in protest marches against the government of the day and became an advocate of his followers.
A Fulani himself from Gumi local government area of Zamfara State, Gumi understands the language and logistics of warfare, and with his knowledge of the expansive forests in the state and other parts of the region, it was natural that his appreciation of the local terrain would be first rate.
A mediator is born?
Gumi’s profile as a mediator between the Nigerian government and bandits suddenly shot up in December last year when 334 students of the Government Science Secondary School, Kankara, Katsina State, were abducted and suddenly, he volunteered to broker a deal with the bandits which led to the eventual release of all the boys.
At that time, many Nigerians praised and commended his efforts as that of a patriotic countryman who was doing everything possible to see the end of banditry in the country.
At the last check, Gumi had made forays into forests in Zamfara, Kaduna, Niger and Sokoto States where he has been meeting with the bandits, pacifying and trying to deradicalize them.
Branding bandits militants
On February 4, Sheikh Gumi had reportedly visited bandits operating in forests around Shinkafi and Gumi local government areas of Zamfara State in a bid to “preach peace and the message of Islam to the Fulani herdsmen” with a view to swaying them away from kidnapping and banditry.
Gumi and his entourage, comprising of other Islamic clerics, had visited the bandits in their hideouts in the Tubali and Makkai forests in Shinkafi local government area of Zamfara which is said to be under the firm control of the armed Fulani herdsmen, and had a meeting with them.
While addressing the bandits, Gumi had said:
“Let there be peace; you all have a legitimate concern and grievances, and I believe that since the Niger Delta armed militants were integrated by the Federal Government and are even in the business of pipelines protection, the government should immediately look into how something like that will be done to the Fulani to provide them with reasonable means of livelihood including jobs, working capitals, entrepreneurship training, building clinic and schooling.”
While Nigerians were yet to come to terms with Gumi’s meeting with the bandits, he stirred the polity by urging the Federal Government to grant a ‘blanket amnesty’ to bandits who were willing to repent and drop their weapons, arguing that not doing so could lead to “serious bloodshed and merciless killings by the angry terrorists.”
Gumi, who spoke with journalists at the Government House in Gusau, the capital of Zamfara State, said if the Federal Government and state governments where the bandits currently operate from keep engaging security agencies to take on the bandits in shootouts, the killings and criminality will not end anytime soon.
“Negotiations remain the best option for conflict resolution. Negotiations settled the grievances of the militants in the South-South, so President Buhari should borrow from that ideology to end terror attacks in his own government.
“When I listened to them, I find that it is a simple case of criminality which turned to banditry, which turned to ethnic war and some genocide too, behind the scene; people don’t know.
“Almost all the heinous crimes in Nigeria are being perpetrated by unemployed youths who have no defined means of livelihood for a number of years and you know that a hungry man is an angry man,” he added.
In another statement, Gumi said:
“I will call on the Zamfara State government to, as a matter of urgency, ensure judicious distribution of any right that belongs to the Fulani people in the state as hijacking their rights will aggravate the already existing tension in the state.
“There is nowhere that peace can reign without justice and if there is justice, the Federal and state governments would not have been wasting huge amount of money to quell banditry in the state.”
Calling Nigerian military rogues
Taking on his former military constituency, Gumi, on February 12, accused the Nigerian Army of making billions from the terrorism war.
Appearing on Arise Television News programme, the fiery preacher said the military is the major beneficiaries on the terrorism war and as such, do not want it to end so their sources of funds would not be closed.
“The military is not encouraging matters at all because they are the beneficiaries of this insecurity.
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“The so-called bandits are complaining mostly against the military killing innocent people. They resorted to buying arms. How did they get the arms? They resorted to kidnapping people which is an end result of these military actions.
“Look, they are ready to drop these arms and return to the fold of the Nigerians just for simple things; schools, hospitals, water.
“And there is an allegation: the military doesn’t want this conflict to end because of the billions of naira they claim for fighting insurgency. So the military is not cooperating.”
Advocating ceasefire
Again on February 18, like the ‘super mediator’ that he is, Gumi played the intermediary when students and teachers of the Government Science College, Kagara, Niger State, were kidnapped by gunmen and went to their hideout in the Tagina forest to meet with them and at the end of the meeting, said he had gotten assurances from the bandits that the captives would soon be released.
During an interview with BBC Hausa, the cleric said:
“Everyone has witnessed it that we negotiated with these people and