Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, an Islamic scholar, has stated that criminals have kidnapped his elder brother and sought for payment in exchange for his release.
In a conversation with some journalists in Gusau, Gummi said that his senior brother was kidnapped because he established a cause for bandits and visited them in their woodland conclaves.
He, on the other hand, requested his brother’s release, claiming that he, too, had been a target of the bandits on multiple occasions.
“Also in our mosque, we have paid a ransom. Even now, somebody is asking me to assist him to pay the ransom. Our family driver who happens to be our relative, his son, a private soldier, was killed by bandits. So now I can support such people?” Gumi said.
Meanwhile, the cleric claimed that his activities with bandits have recently been thwarted, and that he has stopped communicating with them since continuing to engage with them would be risky.
Gumi accused those demanding for his imprisonment for the banditry in the country’s northern regions, emphasizing that it is a fundamental right for people to express their opinions.
The cleric stated that his efforts are aimed at preventing banditry in his own way, as he himself has been a victim of banditry.
“They are clowns, they don’t know anything about the Nigerian society, they don’t know about the Nigerian constitution and liberty. It is a constitutional right for someone to express his views, so long you are not calling for violence or to harm anybody.
“These people calling for my arrest, I don’t see them different from the bandits. To say that I am supporting or sponsoring bandits is malicious. I am just trying to cure them in my own way. I am trying to prevent it my own way and I have seen how my little efforts have helped”
