Politics
Sheikh Gumi accuses Nigerian military of making billions from terrorism war
Renowned Islamic scholar, Sheikh Abubakar Gumi has accused the Nigerian military authorities, saying they do not want the fight against insurgency to end because they make billions of naira from the huge funds allocated for prosecution of the war.
The Kaduna State-based cleric who has been in the news in recent times following his visit to bandits in Zamfara and coming out to ask the Nigerian government to grant them amnesty, disclosed this when he appeared on Arise Television News programme on Thursday.
According to the fiery Islamic scholar, 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,” Gumi said.
Continuing, he added:
“Nobody can justify criminality. Criminality is criminality; there is no word that can justify it. But just look at it, IPOB (Indigenous People of Biafra), they never had the Nigerian Airforce bombing them, Niger Delta militants never had the Nigerian Air Force bombing them.
READ ALSO: Military kills several suspected bandits in Kaduna air raids
“The 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.
“I praise the police and the Inspector-General of Police. I give him credit for assisting us to go and meet these people, but the military is not forthcoming, they are not cooperating, I don’t know why.”
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