Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, said on Monday that the current military onslaught on bandits in Zamfara State and other parts of the North-West would not yield the desired results.
Gumi also warned against poor handling of the situation so that it would not go the way of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Rather, the cleric, in a statement on his Facebook wall, titled, ‘Zamfara: The flaring crisis,’ noted that the Federal Government should handled the matter just the way it did to the EndSAR protest or the Niger Delta militants.
Gumi also stated that the Federal Government should grant amnesty to bandits in the North just the way the administration of late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua did to the Niger Delta militants before his demise.
According to the controversial cleric, military actions in the past have worsened the situation, causing herdsmen resistance.
Any more action will push them closer to religious fanaticism. It gives them protection from discrediting them as thieves and also reinforces their mobilisation of gullible young unemployed youth as we saw with Boko Haram.
These measures I enumerated are cheaper, easier, and lasting than the kinetic approach which is now taking place. No military, especially of a poor economy, can win guerrilla warfare. The recent victory of the Taliban in Afghanistan is a factual warning for those that contemplate this.”
Gumi said the conflict could be resolved by engagement of the government with the agitators and not the use of force which would further escalate the entire situation.
