RismadarVoice Reporters, May 26, 2026
Prominent Islamic scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Abubakar Mahmoud Gumi has pushed back forcefully against accusations that he sympathises with bandits, insisting his position has been twisted by ethnic interest groups and online commentators with little regard for accuracy while renewing his call for Nigeria to abandon what he considers a failing purely military approach to tackling insecurity in the north.
Speaking in Kaduna, the cleric challenged critics to confront an uncomfortable question: if military force has been the primary response to banditry and insurgency since 2009, why has violence continued to spread across Katsina, Zamfara, Niger, and other northern states in the nearly two decades since?
“I flip the question,” he said. “If the kinetic approach is not working for 17 years, why don’t you change the approach? Why don’t you change the methodology?”
Gumi was careful to draw a firm line between advocating engagement and excusing criminality. His proposed framework goes beyond simply handing money to armed groups a shortcut he said, that previous efforts in Katsina and Zamfara relied on without resolving the deeper crisis. Instead, he outlined a broader rehabilitation model: drawing fighters out of forest hideouts, enrolling their children in schools, and creating structured pathways to surrender through amnesty arrangements backed by genuine confidence-building measures.
He argued that many armed men have signalled willingness to lay down their weapons, but that nobody in authority has seriously engaged with their concerns or addressed fears that surrender could mean arrest or extrajudicial targeting.
“These people told us they are ready to lay down their arms, but what are their conditions? Has anybody listened to them?” he asked.
Drawing on the experience of repentant Boko Haram members now numbering in the thousands Gumi said the evidence already exists that rehabilitation can work where prolonged military confrontation has not.
In a separate written statement issued on May 23, Gumi moved to protect his reputation legally and publicly, categorically rejecting any video clip, written message, or statement whether directly attributed to him or implied that suggests he supports, justifies, or shields bandits or terrorists.
He urged the media, the public, and government agencies to disregard what he described as fabricated and doctored materials circulating about him, and warned that those spreading falsehoods could face legal consequences.
The cleric also turned his attention to the political class, insisting that moral reform in governance must accompany any security strategy. He condemned corruption in unambiguous terms, arguing that officials cannot credibly fight crime while looting public funds.
“We need sanity in governance,” he said. “We don’t want to hear stories of government officials swallowing billions of naira while talking about fighting criminals. Crime is crime.”
Gumi concluded on a note of cautious optimism, expressing confidence that Nigeria could eventually overcome its security challenges but only through a collective effort that honestly addresses poverty, ignorance, and social injustice as the root conditions feeding violence across the region.
