A league of Northern leaders and elders being led by Ahmad Abubakar Gumi has visited former President Olusegun Obasanjo over rising cases of insecurity, especially as regards banditry and kidnapping which is spreading like wide fire across all the six geopolitical zones of the country.
Businessday reports that Ahmad Abubakar Gumi has been in the eye of the storm lately following his alleged infamous role as negotiator and ransom collector on behalf of kidnappers and bandits in the high-flying cases of kidnapping in Kaduna, Zamfara and Niger states, calling also for amnesty for bandits and kidnappers.
But, leading a delegation of Northern leaders and elders, including Usman Yusuf, Mallam Tukur Mamu, Umar Ardo, Ibrahim Abdullahi, Suleiman Gumi, Suleiman Yakubu and Mallam Buba Mohammed to Obasanjo’s Lodge at Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL) in Abeokuta on Sunday, Gumi solicited carrot and stick punishment measures for the offenders, saying that the root causes of insecurity should be looked into.
Gumi, who met Obasanjo in company of Oba Babajide Bakre, Agura of Gbagura, Abeokuta; Tunde Akin-Akinsanya, Chairman of Ogun State Christian Association of Nigeria; Sa’addallah Alade Bamigbola, Chief Imam of Egbaland; Kenny Martins, Ola Babajide Jaiyeoba, Tony Ojeshina, Chief Imams of Oke-Ona, Gbagura, Owu respectively and Vitalis Ortese, made a case for Special Courts from Federal Government for dealing with suspected bandits and kidnappers.
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But, having identified lack of education and poverty as root causes of insecurity such as banditry and kidnapping, especially in the North, the meeting suggested that “menace of banditry, kidnapping, other crimes and atrocities leading to general insecurity is a nationwide phenomenon.”
The meeting between leaders and elders drawn from the Northern and Southern Nigeria, agreed thus – “We acknowledge that people from different parts of the country and outside the country are involved although some people are more predominantly involved than others.
We acknowledge that the security situation has gone beyond tolerance; hence Sheik Gumi’s coming to Abeokuta to confer with Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.
“We identified the crisis as micro ethnic conflict between the Fulani and many host communities mainly in the North West. We identified the remote causes as educational and economic disparities, and the negative use of religion and ethnicity by unscrupulous politicians.
“Solutions must be seen and provided on short-, medium-, and long-term bases and must be composed of stick and carrot for the offender and the vulnerable.
“All well-meaning Nigerians have to be involved in finding solutions by desisting from blame game; desisting from ethnicising these crimes; desisting from religionising these crimes; desisting from regionalising these crimes; respecting one another individually, community-wise, locally, ethnically, religiously and socially; showing tolerance and accommodation where necessary, and condemning criminal acts no matter where it is committed and by whom it is committed in Nigeria.
