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Gumi: Nigeria’s Untouchable Sheikh [OPINION]

Published

2 years ago

October 24, 2023

By Suyi Ayodele

Sheikh Ahmad Gumi called Mr. Nyesom Wike, Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, “satanic”, last week. He could be right. Gumi is a Sheikh, and all Sheikhs are spiritual people. Some of them see the heart of God; at least they make us think so! He did not stop at that. He went ahead to ask Wike’s appointing authority, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to remove the former Rivers State governor as the Minister in charge of the FCT. He also did not stop at that. Gumi spoke like someone with authority. He does not issue ultimatums without spelling out the consequences. He warned President Tinubu that if he failed to remove Wike, he, Tinubu, could as well kiss his second term goodbye. In addition, President Tinubu would also have the North’s Muslim community to contend with.

He used epic but unmistakable language to warn the president and Commander-in-Chief. Hear him: “Tinubu should know that we know their plan, he must choose. He should remove the Minister of Abuja; if not, we will collide with him. On the day of a bath, the navel is not hidden.” We should note here that Tinubu has not done six months in his first term of four years. He has not even fully survived the various legal wars the perennial presidential candidate, Abubakar Atiku of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is wagging against him. But Gumi is already issuing a threat of second term denial. Gumi talks as if he and his northern promoters will be the ones to decide Tinubu’s fate come 2027.

Curiously, all Tinubu’s boys are silent over the matter. Not a single word has been uttered to counter Gumi or abuse him for daring the president. If someone else had issued that threat, I know the number of direct and third-party advocacy attacks that would have come his way. Is Tinubu afraid of Gumi and his second term threat? Or is it just a case of you don’t throw stones at every dog that barks at you on the street? The beautiful thing about it all is that Gumi is not God. Only God knows tomorrow! How are we sure Gumi will still be around to determine whether President Tinubu gets a second term? Someone owns Gumi’s life, and He alone can determine when to recall it. We are all IOUs in the hands of our Creator. He recalls our bills anytime He wants it! Gumi, as an Islamic scholar, should know that! The thrust of this piece, however, is not about Gumi and his threat of second term denial. It is about what he said about Wike and the Nigerian State.

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Gumi was angry, and I still think he is still angry with Wike. He was so angry that he had no other name to give to the equally loquacious minister than to baptise him “satanic”. Wike’s offence must have been very grave in the estimation of the untouchable Islamic scholar. Nigeria, we are told, is a secular state. This means that as a nation, the country does not have any state religion. That is purely on paper. As far as the Gumis of this world are concerned, Nigeria belongs to one religion: Islam. Many don’t like this line of argument. The government and those in authority who should know better and speak when occasions demand are also not helping matters. That is why someone like Gumi finds it repulsive that the Israeli Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Michael Freeman, could visit Wike in his office and Wike in turn would have the effrontery to play host to the ambassador.

The main grouse of Gumi, and possibly those behind him, is the fact that Wike allowed the Israeli ambassador access to the inner recess of the FCT at a time Israel is fighting an avoidable war with Palestine. Irrespective of what provoked the Israel-Palestine war, Gumi finds it difficult to believe that the ambassador of a nation which is purportedly killing his Muslim brothers in Gaza would come to visit a Nigerian minister. It doesn’t, and it would never matter to him, the fact that Nigeria maintains a solid bilateral diplomatic relation with Israel. The mere fact that Israel is fighting Palestine, is enough reason why no government official should have anything to do with Israel and all its interests. He could also not understand why Wike should consider the idea of seeking Israeli government assistance on security matters in the FCT. Such cooperation, Gumi says, is simply to do one thing, to wit: “Abuja will now become an extension of Tel Aviv and when they see anyone with a beard like us, they will say it is Bin Laden and we will be killed.” That is his interpretation of any security collaboration between the FCT and Israel, if it comes to fruition.

To get the ears of his target audience, Gumi used the beard as a symbol. The Islamic scholar, however, failed to tell us if everyone with a beard is an agent of terror that Osama Bin Laden represented. I have seen fantastic, God-fearing bearded men. I have watched videos of bearded Sheiks like Gumi, who preached peace and harmonious relationships. So, what exactly is Gumi afraid of in a secured FCT, or any part of Nigeria? Are all bearded men evil, or all clean-shaven men angels? The answer is in the content of our characters. The elders in my place say that only children with sanguinary tendencies look for knife-repellant charm (iwa omo ni mu omo je okigbe). The womenfolk tell us that when you don’t spread any millet outside, you should not be afraid of the rain. “Conscience”, the legend, Uthman Dan Fodio, says “is an open wound; only truth can heal it.” What Gumi said in that his homily last week was, and remains, an open call for war! Threatening that President Tinubu’s failure to remove Wike would set the president on “collision” course with him and Muslims in the country is akin to calling for war. It is an infraction that should not be left unpunished.

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But who will do that? Who has the testicular fortitude to ask the almighty Sheikh Gumi to come and account for his unguarded utterances? Nigeria is too fragile. Gumi knows this. That was why he drew the line between the two most prominent religions in the country. He also knew that the issue of Muslim-Muslim ticket of President Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shetima, would continue to haunt the nation. He said: “Where are those that worked for the Muslim-Muslim ticket? Hypocrites and worthless people. Abuja is becoming an extension of Tel Aviv and security is the bastion of the people. Have you not heard the silence? They know what they are doing…” This is a call to arms. Unfortunately, the State is loudly silent! Godwin Emefiele was accused of ‘financing terrorism’, and he has been in government custody for months now. Gumi openly called for arms against the State, he is walking around a free man. We are told that one partridge is not taller than the other, except the one which climbs the heap. Gumi’s partridge is taller than the rest not because it is on a heap; but because it is on the rooftop where it remains untouchable.

There are people that are born with some levels of privilege. There is nothing wrong in being born a privileged child. But there is everything wrong when one abuses such privilege. There are many privileged Nigerians. You may change that to read: there are many over-indulged Nigerians. Those who are simply untouchable, the very privileged children of the chief priest. Every infraction they commit is without rebuke. By virtue of birth and the configuration of my lineage, I belong to the class of people known as Omo abé Àlà (children born into the inner recess of the shrine). Why? My forebears were chief priests of our family deity, Orangun. To underscore the privileged position my lineage occupies, we are saluted this way: “Omo Ààrò mésè domi akòko nù, àgbà hìhòrò mú sèrìnrín; kó somo olòmúrín, hàn wí ké so ugba uhun” (when the son of the chief priest overturns the water meant for the deity, the lesser priests laugh over it; if a child of the uninitiated does that, he pays fines in two hundred folds). Omi akòko is sacred water for the deity. The biggest sacrilege anyone can commit is to overturn the water. The penalty is grave. But if any member of my lineage does that, nothing happens. Privileged children, we are! However, despite that we have the knowledge that we are without rebuke in spiritual matters, there is no history (past or present) to show that anyone from my lineage has ever committed the sacrilege of overturning the water meant for the deity. The family discipline as espoused in the saying: Omo abé Àlà hísìwà hí hù (children born into the inner recess of the shrine don’t misbehave) ensures that.

Gumi is no doubt one of the few privileged Nigerians we have around us. He says and does whatever he likes without consequences, like a typical son of a chief priest. He can even threaten our existence as a nation, and nothing will happen to him. The State is afraid of him. If not so, going by what Gumi said about Wike and the Nigerian State last week, one would have expected the State to rein him in. He had talked and acted the same way on several occasions in the past. At a time when banditry was more common than the air we breathe and the bandits remained invincible, only Gumi knew where they were. Only he could go to the deep forest of the wicked (Igbó òdájú) without any consequences. Only Gumi could tell the government how to handle the compulsive killers of the north and the government obeyed! He negotiated with bandits on behalf of the Nigerian State, and we were asked to show appreciation to him.

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Nobody remembered the saying that it takes a thief to be able to trace the footprints of another thief on the rock. Nobody questioned how he became so familiar with the felons and became their go-between. When you occupy an uncommon, privileged position, there is nothing you cannot do. Discretion only teaches one to be circumspect. He also told the nation in the same sermon that he might not be available for the intermediary role anymore. One of the groups he commands, he added, had asked him not to. “One Miyetti Allah leader came and told me that if they come to me with a proposal of negotiation with bandits, I should not be part of it, that I should leave it alone.” I pity the states that will come under the attack of bandits soonest because Nigeria’s negotiator-in-chief has closed shop, temporarily, though! Nobody is speaking to that loaded message. Indeed, Nigeria is still a huge joke.

That Nigeria is divided sharply along two contrasting stratifications; geographically, socially, and religiously, is not contestable. Geographically, we have the north and the south. In social terms we have the extremely rich and the extremely poor. In religion, we have the Muslim and the Christians. Don’t ask me here about the traditionalists. Those ones are forbidden to confess their faith openly. If you are in doubt, go and ask why the Osun worshippers were not allowed to do their things in Kwara State. And nobody should draw my attention to the recent Ìsèse Day declared in some states in the South-West. That is pure hypocrisy! Still in doubt? Tell me, how many of the governors were seen at any shrine showing solidarity with the traditionalists the way you find in the churches and mosques? Gumi speaks the minds of the north, and to a greater extent, those of the Muslim community. There is nothing wrong with that, if done in a more civilised way. However, Gumi is already carrying his sadakat (almsgiving) beyond the mosque. It is wrong for a section of the country to feel that without it, the rest cannot progress. The 2027 general election is some three years and seven months away. How on earth will Gumi be issuing threats about what will happen in almost four years’ time? And should it come to that, does Gumi know that if we find it difficult to open a calabash, we can as well break it?

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Out-of-school: Group To Enroll Adolescent Mothers In Bauchi

Published

3 hours ago

December 10, 2025

Editor

Women Child Youth Health and Education Initiative (WCY) with support from Malala Education Champion Network, have charted a way to enroll adolescent mothers to access education in Bauchi schools.

Rashida Mukaddas, the Executive Director, WCY stated this in Bauchi on Wednesday during a one-day planning and inception meeting with education stakeholders on Adolescent Mothers Education Access (AMEA) project of the organisation.

According to her, the project targeted three Local Government Areas of Bauchi, Misau and Katagum for implementation in the three years project.

She explained that all stakeholders in advancing education in the state would be engaged by the organisation to advocate for Girl-Child education.

The target, she added, was to ensure that as many as married adolescent mothers and girls were enrolled back in school in the state.

“Today marks an important step in our collective commitment to ensuring that every girl in Bauchi state, especially adolescent who are married, pregnant, or young mothers has the right, opportunity, and support to continue and complete her education.

“This project has been designed to address the real and persistent barriers that prevent too many adolescent mothers from returning to school or staying enrolled.

“It is to address the barriers preventing adolescent mothers from continuing and completing their education and adopting strategies that will create an enabling environment that safeguard girls’ rights to education while removing socio-cultural and economic obstacles,” said Mukaddas.

She further explained to the stakeholders that the success of the project depended on the strength of their collaboration, the alignment of their actions, and the commitments they forge toward the implementation of the project.

Also speaking, Mr Kamal Bello, the Project Officer of WCY, said that the collaboration of all the education stakeholders in the state with the organisation could ensure stronger enforcement of the Child Rights Law.

This, he said, could further ensure effective re-entry and retention policies for adolescent girls, increased community support for girls’ education and a Bauchi state where no girl was left behind because of marriage, pregnancy, or motherhood.

“It is observed that early marriage is one of the problems hindering girls’ access to education.

“This organisation is working toward ensuring that girls that have dropped out of school due to early marriage are re-enrolled back in school,” he said.

Education stakeholders present at the event included representatives from the state Ministry of Education, Justice, Budget and Economic Planning and Multilateral Coordination.

Others were representatives from International Federation of Women Lawyers, Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE), Bauchi state Agency for Mass Education, Civil Society Organization, Religious and Traditional institutions, among others.

They all welcomed and promised to support the project so as to ensure its effective implementation and achieve its set objectives in the state.

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OPINION: Fubara, Adeleke And The Survival Dance

Published

3 hours ago

December 10, 2025

Editor

By Israel Adebiyi

You should be aware by now that the dancing governor, Ademola Adeleke has danced his last dance in the colours of the Peoples Democratic Party. His counterpart in Rivers, Siminalayi Fubara has elected to follow some of his persecutors to the All Progressive Congress, after all “if you can’t beat them, you can join them.”
Politics in Nigeria has always been dramatic, but every now and then a pattern emerges that forces us to pause and think again about where our democracy is heading. This week on The Nation’s Pulse, that pattern is what I call the politics of survival. Two events in two different states have brought this into sharp focus. In both cases, sitting governors elected on the platform of the same party have found new homes elsewhere. Their decisions may look sudden, but they reveal deeper issues that have been growing under the surface for years.

In Rivers, Governor Siminalayi Fubara has crossed into the All Progressives Congress. In Osun, Governor Ademola Adeleke has moved to the Accord Party. These are not small shifts. These are moves by people at the top of their political careers, people who ordinarily should be the ones holding their parties together. When those at the highest levels start fleeing, it means the ground beneath them has become too shaky to stand on. It means something has broken.

A Yoruba proverb captures it perfectly: Iku to n pa oju gba eni, owe lo n pa fun ni. The death that visits your neighbour is sending you a message. The crisis that has engulfed the Peoples Democratic Party did not start today. It has been building like an untreated infection. Adeleke saw the signs early. He watched senior figures fight openly. He watched the party fail to resolve its zoning battles. He watched leaders undermine their own candidates. At some point, you begin to ask yourself a simple question: if this house collapses today, what happens to me? In Osun, where the competition between the two major parties has always been fierce, Adeleke was not going to sit back and become another casualty of a party that refused to heal itself. Survival became the most reasonable option.

His case makes sense when you consider the political temperature in Osun. This is a state where the opposition does not sleep. Every misstep is amplified. Every weakness is exploited. Adeleke has spent his time in office under constant scrutiny. Add that to the fact that the national structure of his party is wobbly, divided and uncertain about its future, and the move begins to look less like betrayal and more like self-preservation.

Rivers, however, tells a slightly different story. Fubara’s journey has been a long lesson in endurance. From the moment he emerged as governor, it became clear he was stepping into an environment loaded with expectations that had nothing to do with governance. His political godfather was not content with being a supporter. He wanted control. He wanted influence. He wanted obedience. Every decision was interpreted through the lens of loyalty. From the assembly crisis to the endless reconciliation meetings, to the barely hidden power struggles, Fubara spent more time fighting shadows than building the state he was elected to lead.

It soon became clear that he was governing through a maze of minefields. Those who should have been allies began to treat him like an accidental visitor in the Government House. The same legislators who were meant to be partners in governance suddenly became instruments of pressure. Orders came from places outside the official structure. Courtrooms turned into battlegrounds. At some point, even the national leadership of his party seemed unsure how to tame the situation. These storms did not come in seasons, they came in waves. One misunderstanding today. Another in two weeks. Another by the end of the month. Anyone watching closely could see that the governor was in a permanent state of emergency.

So when the winds started shifting again and lawmakers began to realign, those who understood the undercurrents knew exactly what was coming. Fubara knew too. A man can only take so much. After months of attacks, humiliations and attempts to cage his authority, the move to another party was not just political. It was personal. He had given the reconciliation process more chances than most would. He had swallowed more insults than any governor should. He had watched institutions bend and twist under the weight of private interests. In many ways, his defection is a declaration that he has finally chosen to protect himself.

But the bigger question is how we got here. How did two governors in two different parts of the country end up taking the same decision for different but related reasons? The answer goes back to the state of internal democracy in our parties. No party in Nigeria today fully practices the constitution it claims to follow. They have elaborate rules on paper but very loose habits in reality. They talk about fairness, but their primaries are often messy. They preach unity, but their caucuses are usually divided into rival camps. They call themselves democratic institutions, yet dissent is treated as disloyalty.

Political parties are supposed to be the engine rooms of democracy. They are the homes where ideas are debated, leaders are groomed, and future candidates are shaped. In Nigeria, they increasingly look like fighting arenas where the loudest voices drown out everyone else. When leaders ignore their own constitutions, the structure begins to crack. When factions begin to run parallel meetings, the foundation gets weaker. When decisions are forced down the throats of members, people begin making private plans for their future.

No governor wants to govern in chaos. No politician wants to be the last one standing in a sinking ship. This is why defections are becoming more common. A party that cannot manage itself cannot manage its members. And members who feel exposed will always look for safer ground.

But while these moves make sense for Adeleke and Fubara personally, the people they govern often become the ones left in confusion. Voters choose candidates partly because of party ideology, even if our ideologies are weak. They expect stability. They expect continuity. They expect that the mandate they gave will remain intact. So when a governor shifts political camp without prior consultation, the people feel blindsided. They begin to wonder whether their votes carry weight in a system where elected officials can switch platforms in the blink of an eye.

This is where the politics of survival becomes dangerous for democracy. If leaders keep prioritizing their personal safety over party stability, the system begins to lose coherence. Parties lose their identity. Elections lose their meaning. Governance becomes a game of musical chairs. Today you are here. Tomorrow you are there. Next week you may be somewhere else. The people become bystanders in a democracy that is supposed to revolve around them.

Rivers and Osun should serve as reminders that political parties need urgent restructuring. They need to rebuild trust internally. They need to enforce their constitutions consistently. They need to treat members as stakeholders, not spectators. When members feel protected, they stay. When they feel targeted, they run. This pattern will continue until parties learn the simple truth that power is not built by intimidation, but by inclusion.

There is also the question of what these defections mean for governance. When governors are dragged into endless party drama, service delivery suffers. Time that should be spent on roads, schools, hospitals, water projects and job creation ends up being spent in meetings, reconciliations and press briefings. Resources that should strengthen the state end up funding political battles. The public loses twice. First as witnesses to the drama. Then as victims of delayed or abandoned development.

In Rivers, the months of tension slowed down the government. Initiatives were stalled because the governor was busy trying to survive political ambush. In Osun, Adeleke had to juggle governance with internal fights in a crumbling party structure. Imagine what they could have achieved if they were not constantly looking over their shoulders.

Now, as both men settle into new political homes, the final question is whether these new homes will provide stability or merely temporary shelter. Nigeria’s politics teaches one consistent lesson. New alliances often come with new expectations. New platforms often come with new demands. And new godfathers often come with new conditions. Whether Adeleke and Fubara have truly found peace or simply bought time is something only time will tell.

But as citizens, what we must insist on is simple. The politics of survival should not become the politics of abandonment. Our leaders can fight for their political life, but they must not forget that they hold the people’s mandate. The hunger, poverty, insecurity and infrastructural decay that Nigerians face will not be solved by defection. It will be solved by steady leadership and functional governance.

The bigger lesson from Rivers and Osun is clear. If political parties in Nigeria continue on this path of disunity and internal sabotage, they will keep losing their brightest and most strategic figures. And if leaders keep running instead of reforming the system, then we will wake up one day to a democracy where the people are treated as an afterthought.

Governors may survive the storms. Parties may adjust to new alignments. But the people cannot keep paying the price. Nigeria deserves a democracy that works for the many, not the few. That is the real pulse of the nation.

News

Human Rights Day: Stakeholders Call For More Campaigns Against GBV

Published

5 hours ago

December 10, 2025

Editor

Panel of discussants at an event to commemorate the International Human Rights Day, 2025 on Wednesday called for more campaigns against Gender-Based Violence, adding that it must start from the family.

The panel of discussants drawn from religious and community leaders, security agents, members of the civil society community, chiefs, etc, made the call in Benin in an event organised by Justice Development & Peace Centre (JDPC), Benin, in collaboration with Women Aid Collective (WACOL) with the theme: Multilevel Dialogue for Men, Women, Youth and Critical Take holders on the Prevention and Response to Gender-Based Violence (GBV).

The stakeholders, who said causes of GBV are enormous, called for more enlightenment and education in the family, community and the religious circle.

Security agents in the panel charged members of the public to report GBV cases to security agents regardless of the sex Involved, adding: “When GBV happens, it should be reported to the appropriate quarters. It doesn’t matter if the woman or the man is the victim. GBV perpetrators should not be covered up, they must be exposed. We are there to carry out the prosecution after carrying out the necessary investigation.”

Earlier in his opening remarks, Executive Director, JDPC, Rev. Fr. Benedicta Onwugbenu, lamented that (GBV) remains the most prevalent in the society yet hidden because of silence from victims.

According to him, GBV knows no age, gender or race, adding that “It affects people of all ages, whether man or woman, boy or girl.”

“It affects people from different backgrounds and communities, yet it remains hidden because of silence, stigma, and fear. Victims of GBV are suffering in silence.”

On her part, Programme Director, WACOL, Mrs. Francisca Nweke, who said “women are more affected, and that is why we are emphasising on them,” stressed “we are empowering Christian women and women leaders of culture for prevention and response to Gender-Based Violence in Nigeria through the strengthening of grassroots organisations.”