Popular Islamic scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, on Monday, said bandits were pushed by circumstances and only killed for “revenge”.
He said this during an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today while speaking with Seun Okinbaloye on Monday.
According to Gumi, the bandits are mostly interested in ransoms from kidnapping and also open to negotiation.
“I choose to call them (bandits) militants because they are fighting an ethnic war. They are kidnapping to get money. Look at the case where they released a bus full of people, they were asking for N500 million but now, they freed them with mere negotiations for free. Nothing was paid. Even one of them victims’ father called me to thank me.
Sheikh Gumi, who met with bandits in the forest of Niger last Saturday, over some kidnapped persons in the state, said there was hope that the abducted students and staff of Government Science College, Kagara, would be freed.
He said, “Since there is a peace process, they are ready to lay down their arms, stop kidnapping and all the things they are doing. And you call them killer herdsmen, how many people do they kill? Sometimes, they are on drugs. They want the money.
