Nigeria presently is a country in search of peace. There is general unrest everywhere in the land. Life for the next second is not guaranteed. There is no hiding place everywhere you go.
If it is not bandits today, tomorrow it is Boko Haram insurgents. Kidnappers, ritual murderers, cattle rustlers, armed robbers etc are on the prowl everywhere you go.
The government is overwhelmed. The security operatives have been disarmed and the hoodlums are having a field day taking hundreds of school children in turns in what appears to be a familiar ritual of kidnap and negotiations of ransom to free the groups of students. Our religious leaders have remained silent in the face of government weaknesses to perform their assigned roles of protecting lives and properties.
However, a unique personality, a renowned Islamic cleric of repute found a good job recently mediating between the bandits and the pretentious government officials. Sheikh Gumi does not need any introduction in Nigeria. He represents different things to many people before his new found role which has cut him in a web of controversy.
Gumi was born in the village of Gummi now a local government area in Zamfara state on the last Friday of Ramadan in the Islamic year 1344, to the family of Mahmud, an Islamic scholar and Alkali (judge) of Gummi. His education started within the walls of his family when he was a pupil of his father’s Islamic teachings. He later sent to a school under the tutelage of a Malam called Musa at Ambursa, Sokoto province.
Gumi was an outspoken Islamic scholar and Grand Khadi of the Northern Region of Nigeria, a position which made him a central authority in the interpretation of the Sharia legal system in the region. He was a close associate of Ahmadu Bello, the premier of the Northern region in the 1950s and 1960s and became the Grand Khadi in 1967, the position was abolished.
A glimpse into his timeline would reveal these developments. In 1947, Abubakar Gumi, left his job as secretary to Qadi Attahiru and went to teach at the Kano Law School, which he had previously attended.
In 1949, he took a teaching job at a school in Maru, Sokoto.
Sheik Gumi made his first pilgrimage to Mecca in 1955 and was joined in the journey by Ahmadu Bello.
In 1957, he became an interpreter for the Northern Nigeria government on Saudi Arabia matters.
He also met and befriended many members of the Ummah or Muslim community in Saudi Arabia, many of whom later became his benefactors after the death of Ahmadu Bello in 1966.
He received the Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic in 1987, he received the King Faisal International Prize from Saudi Arabia for his translation of the Quran into Hausa language.
Recently, the cleric in his new found role dragged himself into the eyes of the storm when he slammed journalists and warned Nigerians against calling the bandits criminals.
He has been meeting with bandits in different forests across states in the North, reportedly preaching to them and convincing them to drop their arms.
The cleric had also put out several calls to states and the Federal Governments to grant amnesty to the bandits, insisting that they are not different from the Niger Delta militants.
Appearing on Arise Television last Thursday, the Islamic scholar accused the media of fuelling insecurity in the North by calling the bandits criminals.
The cleric said Nigerians and the media must stop addressing bandits as criminals, but should learn to address them with nice words.
According to him, using such words to describe the bandits will harden their hearts from surrendering their weapons and repenting of their sins. In his words, he had this to say:
“You’re emphasising on criminality, even the press are criminals too because they are putting oil into fire,” Gumi said.
“These people are listening to you, you should not address them as criminals if you want them to succumb.
“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.
However, his comments had also attracted knocks to him from Nigerians of diverse background who wonder at his comments. Elder statesman Edwin Clarke berated his comments while a prominent religious leader Sat Guru MaharaJ Ji and the leader of the One Love Family, demanded that he be prosecuted for negotiating with bandits.
The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has called for the arrest and prosecution of Sheikh Ahmad Gumi over his recent comments on bandits. A statement by HURIWA reads partly: “We call for the arrest of the Kaduna based Islamic cleric, Sheikh Abubakar Gumi who has waged a media campaign to defend terrorists.
The Nigerian Union of Journalist (NUJ) have also attacked the cleric and called for his arrest. It is strange according to the perception of Nigerians that any right thinking person would support all manner of crimes which has continually threatened the peace of the country.
Religious leaders of all persuasions are expected by their adherents to sue for peace. Shockingly, they have been silent on the restiveness that has pervaded the nation. It is disturbing and dreadful that the incessant unrest in the land might snowball into civil unrest.
