PANDEF Slams Gumi For Saying Bandits Learnt Kidnapping From Militants

Pan-Niger Delta Forum, PANDEF, has slammed Islamic cleric Sheikh Gumi for saying that Fulani herdsmen and bandits learnt kidnapping from Niger Delta militants.

Gumi had made the statement when he appeared on an AIT programme.

He said,  “We didn’t take a different route of trying to solve this problem and that is why we are still here today. And when we say amnesty, we don’t mean that anyone proved to be involved in murder should go free as such.

“They learnt kidnapping from MEND. I do not see any difference. They were the first victims of rustling. Their cattle is their oil. What we are seeing now is more of an insurgency than banditry. I can say 10 percent of the herders are criminals, not 90 per cent. In the end, they took up weapons to protect themselves from extinction.

“They can take care of the little remnants of criminals among themselves because they don’t want anybody to bring mayhem to them.”

National Publicity Secretary, PANDEF, Ken Robinson, told Vanguard: “PANDEF considers the statement by Sheikh Gumi that herdsmen learned to kidnap from Niger Delta militants and that if Niger Delta militants could get amnesty, herdsmen should get same, as not only irrational, bizarre and outrageous, but a desperate attempt to underplay the horrendous crimes being perpetrated by killer herdsmen in the country.

“What Gumi is invariably saying is that amnesty should be granted to armed robbers, Yahoo boys, sea pirates,  bandits terrorizing North-West and parts of North-Central, and to Boko Haram terrorists. Of course, they are, reportedly, even recruiting so-called repentant Boko Haram terrorists into the Nigerian Army. It’s unthinkable.

“Sheikh Gumi could push his ‘one-upmanship’ this far because we are more or less in a rudderless state.

“On a more serious note, the saneness of that Sheikh needs to be interrogated. Nobody in the right frame of mind would make such an assertion, in the face of current occurrences.”