Sheikh Ahmed Gumi has called for the establishment of Nomadic Affairs Ministry allegedly as one of the silver bullets to eradicate insecurity perpetrated by Fulani militiamen.
Gumi took to his Facebook account to make the call in a post where he chastised the ongoing military’s onslaught on the criminals.
In the post titled, War has never been a solution anywhere, anytime, the controversial Islamic cleric hurled insult on politicians, and tore into the exercise by the military, saying it is no solution.
Instead he said the solution lied in amnesty for the criminals and establishment of ministry of nomadic affairs
The post:
Some of the politicians, who I see as urban-bandits, out of their share mismanagement of our meager resources and misplacement of priority, cause the death and infirmity of more people than the effect of bandits.
Of recent, how many Nigerians die of cholera – a water-borne disease – because of lack of simple clean water to drink, or typhoid, malaria and malnutrition?
A nation with a maternal mortality rate of almost 500,000 per annum because of the lack of adequate maternal health facilities and qualified staff. A country where its highly-priced medical personnel are looking for a window to escape the inferno. Such a country, please!
Some disingenuous people say, ‘Peace and negotiations with herdsmen, bandits have failed, and your mission has failed!’ I said my mission has not failed but it was sabotaged or discouraged by the same influential people that benefit from the chaos or like us to destroy ourselves and leave the herdsmen in perpetual ignorance.
Some said we have tried amnesty but it didn’t work. You didn’t try amnesty but tried amnesia. Amnesty without rehabilitation, reconciliation and reparation is no amnesty.
Ask the former Niger Delta militants who killed security men in the past what an amnesty is. What stops us from having a federal ministry of nomadic affairs where their grievances and complaints would be addressed?
All the bandit leaders we saw complained of how some repentant ones were picked and extra-judicially killed after the surrender of their weapons. Without their trust of the very unjust system all Nigerians complain of, which they took arms to fight, peace and negotiations with them will not work. This brings our role of mediation. They know as religious men we will not deceive them, and they came out in troops to meet us. To our astonishment, it is the same unjust system that turns round to betray our peace mission.