Sheikh Ahmed Gumi, the go between bandits and President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, is a man who wants to reduce the temperature of our heightened hysterical sense of siege mentality from Fulani bandits. He is the image of a hardcore, ultraconservative, Islamic fundamentalist, abrasive, bandit defender, peacemaker, paradigm breaker, fearless malam, caliphate defender and fiery preacher. His grey bushy beard evokes the image a Mujahidin fighter from the rocky mountains of Afghanistan. He looks like the archetypal and medieval figure of kolanut chewing Fulani warlord from the arid and empty quarters of Sokoto caliphate. He enjoys the limelight and seems to have a covenant with controversy.
Recently Gumi stirred up national uproar by some of his outlandish ideas about banditry, the Military and the tacit sympathy he has been nursing for the Fulani murderers. The whole social and commentariat space has been driven to a hysterical sense of utter disgust, anger and helplessness watching actor Gumi on stage as he draws our opprobrium.
His pedigree as a medical doctor has come under rigorous scrutiny. Brand Gumi is collapsing every sale paradigm and making eccentricism the newest fad in our search to combat the raging anger hounds of perdition let loose in our forests.
To Gumi, bandits are Nigeria’s most eligible bachelors. They are the most misunderstood and the most vilified. To Gumi, bandits have a justified reason why they took to a life of fearless, extorting, raping and killing existence. To Gumi, it is the system that made them into Rambo outlaws roaming Northern forests for human bounty to satisfy a bloodlust lifestyle. To Gumi, bandits are the Martians who inhabit the alternative universe of Hobbesian morality where life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Sambisa forest is life outside society and it fits Thomas Hobbes description perfectly.
Sheikh Ahmad Gumi has some sterling laurels around his groin. He is Fulani, a medical consultant, bandit broker, deal maker, Islamic cleric, scholar, former military officer and current Mufti and mufassir at the Kaduna Central mosque. Mohammedan quest has taken him to Saudi Arabia’s Umm al-Qura University where he graduated in Islamic Jurisprudence and Tafsir. He is becoming famous for striving hard to punch above his weight on or off the ring.
He is the author of a would-be bestselling but yet to be published book: “The Gumification of Banditry in Nigeria.” In many of his public outbursts he has been proselytising for a major amnesty for armed bandits and he readily gaslights those who oppose his ‘noble’ move as ignoramuses. Hear one of his effusive pleas: “I see no reason why we cannot give bandits who repent amnesty. You ask why do we give them amnesty but they told us specifically that they are ready to drop their arms and they don’t want to be pursued with legal actions after they repented. If the country could pardon coup plotters who committed treasonable offences in the era of military administration, the bandits can as well enjoy similar forgiveness even better under democratic rule.
“These people in the bush who have taken arms, they are criminals. I wonder who is not a criminal. Since Nigeria forgave coup plotters, forgave those that killed. Even those that instigated civil war; civil war that millions of people died, I see no reason why we cannot accept their repentance. Since that is the bottle-neck and it is only the federal government that can give them that leverage. And strangely we found out that they are victims too. They were victims of profiling. So many of them were arrested and punished just for looking like herdsmen.”
He went further and announced that it is indecorous and uncharitable of all Nigerians to call bandits criminals. “You’re emphasising on criminality, even the press are criminals too because they are putting oil into fire. These people are listening to you, you should not address them as criminals if you want them to succumb,” he said.
He added: “Youths are ready to put down their weapons, now you are calling them criminals. How do you want them to cooperate? So you have to show them they are Nigerians, that they should not hurt children, be law-abiding. This is the language we want to hear, the press should assist us in getting the boys. You see when we talk with them with nice words, they are ready to listen to us, put down their weapons but when the language is about criminality, killing them, then this is what we will keep having. Let me show you something, I don’t wish you harm but if you are stopped by armed robbers on the road, you will not use the word criminal on them. Tell them good things so that you will save yourself. We are trying to save the nation from these youths that have a false sense of authority. The language we use is very important.
“We have a problem now, proliferation of arms, and there are drugs and semi-illiterate population. How do you deal with it? By castigating them and abusing them in the media? You’re talking to yourself, they don’t even listen to you so the best for us is the clergymen, the respected people and elderly try to reach them. Put sense into them, when you go, they lower their heads, they will listen, they will start giving excuses, accept their excuse but show them the way out. We are trying to nurture them out of this criminality. You have the power of media, you should use it to bring people together not try to spread things that divide people.”
A whole universe of condemnations have followed the above cuddly and liberal gibberish from the crusading Gumi whose idea of evil peace with the bandits is amnesty. The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria asked the military to arrest Gumi for prosecution over his unholy dalliance with the forest beasts called bandits. The Arewa Consultative Forum, Christian Association of Nigeria, Northern Governors Forum and the Northern Elders Forum have all carpet-bombed the incinerating devices of Gumi. A backward glance on Gumi showed that he once threw a deadly grenade on the military. His target was to polarise the military on religious line and tarnish its integrity. Hear him: “We have seen how some Christian elements in the Nigerian security apparatus have been killers of innocent Muslim leaders for political reasons.”
On Monday the Nigerian Army returned fire and warned Gumi not to drag the image and reputation of the Army into the murky mud of disrepute. Gormless Gumi may have gone stone cold but there are salient and probing questions for the Buhari administration. Why are Fulani people like Gumi prone to be loose cannons with rights to drop inciting comments without any consequences? Why has Gumi remained free and unchallenged and uninterrogated by the military? Why is Gumi not tried for the sin of a double agent? Why has he not led the military to the bandits’ hideouts?
If Odua People’s Congress foot soldiers who nabbed the notorious bandit called Iskilu Wakilu could be detained and sent into Police cell, pray what is supposed to be the fate of a sheikh who not only knows bandits hideout but was also prepared to plead and negotiate on their behalf?
One cannot pretend not to know the answer. Gumi is a privileged Fulani from Northern Nigeria. The nature, character, symbology and orientation of President Muhammadu Buhari administration, exists only to defend and shield without compromise the interests of certain ethnic stock to the exclusion of others. Gormless Gumi may have gone gaga but at least we could all watch his clerical eccentrics with resigned endurance.
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