The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, on Saturday, lambasted the Federal Government and all the security agencies, accusing them of complicit silence and collective failure to arrest controversial Islamic cleric and bandit-sympathiser, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, in spite of his alleged many unguarded and alleged criminal statements.

HURIWA in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, said it is not surprising that while the state-controlled Department of State Services go after objective critics of government’s unpopular policies, especially Christians like the Bishop of Catholic Diocese of Sokoto, Hassan Kukah; the late former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Obadiah Mailafia; the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), has spared Gumi despite his inflammatory comments.

The group noted that Gumi, at a recent event in Abuja organised by the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria and the Northern Consensus Movement, called for the establishment of a ministry of nomadic affairs to address the grievances of herders just like the Federal Government created a ministry for Niger Delta affairs.

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According to HURIWA, Gumi has definitely been speaking the mind of the complicitous bandit-enablers in government and that is why he has not been arrested because the Islamic cleric is considered a mouthpiece of both bandits launching attacks from the forests of the North-West and North Central states as well as a government agent, trumpeting its interest and shameless Fulanisation agenda in a non-conventional way.

The rights group said Gumi, who has been hobnobbing in the forests with notorious bandit leaders like Bello Turji and allegedly defending the killings and atrocious crimes of the terrorists before Nigerians, does not deserve to stay among decent people but should be arrested and detained in DSS custody until properly prosecuted in line with the counter Terrorism law.

HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “Sheikh Gumi is the real terrorist sympathiser. A chronic bandit-sympathiser is not so different from a terrorist. It is shameful that the government let people like Gumi roam the streets while it held the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, hostage for one full year.

“It is shameful that Gumi is defending the killings, maimings and kidnappings done by Islamic bandits and Fulani terrorists while the government has tied Yoruba Nation agitator, Sunday Adeyemo, aka Sunday Igboho, in Benin Republic with spurious charges.

“Gumi, from all indication, is a terrorist-enabler. He has been indicted many times by grieving family members of kidnapped victims for acting as a middleman in the payment of ransom between the distraught families and bandits even as he had denied but government didn’t bother to investigate because the government officials are complicit with terrorists.

“In February 2021, a former Assistant Director with the Department of State Services, Dennis Amachree, said the compound where Gumi met bandits in Niger State to discuss the release of the abducted students and teachers of Government Science College, Kangara, was very close to a military post.

“Now, because when evil is left unstopped, it grows wings, an emboldened Gumi now call for a ministry for bandits, for savage criminals and bloodthirsty marauders who raped and killed both mothers and daughters! What gut? What audacity for Gumi!

“Gumi has been deodorising evil. He must be stopped and arrested. Gumi may be doing the bidding of the powers that be who may have a hand in sinister plots to argue for establishment of a ministry for Fulani bandits using Niger Delta freedom fighters as example of why this travesty of the law should be committed.

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“There is a grand design by powerful persons of Fulani origin in government who have a plot to carve out a commission to benefit the Fulani terrorists who by the way ought to be degraded, decimated and exterminated given their horrendous crimes against humanity but here Gumi providing defence for them and even arguing that someone suspected of killing many people should be pardoned.

“These are abominations. Nigeria is not a Banana Republic. Arrest Gumi now! DSS do your job for once.”