Gumi stirs new controversy with medical trip to Kogi herdsmen

As controversy over the establishment of a special school in Kaduna forests by Sheikh Ahmad Gumi continues to generate debates, the retired army officer has stirred another round of storm with the mobilisation of top Islamic elite to a forest in Kogi State with a declaration to provide medical care to herdsmen there.

But unlike the opening of a special school for bandits in Kaduna, which he went with a handful of adherents, Gumi made a huge display of top Northern Islamic faithful who are on the train to the Kogi forest.

A trained medical doctor and retired Army captain, Sheikh Gumi took the team to the forests in Kogi State where they offered medical services to Fulani herdsmen and their families. Gumi is one of the strong advocates of a non-kinetic approach to ending the raging banditry and terrorism challenge facing Nigeria and has called for a ‘positive engagement’ with the bandits who, many believe, are mostly herdsmen.

He does not appear to be perturbed by discontents over his approach to ending the crisis of insecurity in Nigeria and has defiantly made a case for the granting of amnesty or pardon for terrorists and bandits who are actively killing, maiming, destroying and collecting ransom from their kidnap victims.

The Islamic cleric argues that the herdsmen called ‘bandits’ are not malevolent elements but ‘victims of neglect over the years’, who need basic amenities and opportunities to turn a new leaf. Gumi has defended his strange position, which has, however, neither been endorsed nor rejected by the federal, state of local government where he has taken his interventions to.

He has not also opened up on how he got approvals for the school for bandits and the medical outreach for the bandits. No state government has also commented or joined issues with the cleric. The prolonged silence on the part of governments of the different states where the cleric has established his presence has, however, emboldened him to carry on with more and more programmes for his supporters and beneficiaries.

He sent a statement to Arewa Voice explaining what the medical outreach was meant to accomplish and boasted of a rich calibre of top Nigerians backing him.