Skip to main content

No school is safe until govt negotiates with bandits, says Gumi

 


He stated these during an interview on The efforts to rescue the kidnapped pupils of Tegina Islamic School, Niger State.

The bandits had demanded N200m from the victims’ parents, which was later reduced to N150m. Gumi said despite efforts to get the pupils out, the bandits were adamant in their financial demand.

He said, “But we are trying to talk sense to them that these are just innocent schoolchildren. We don’t even have any idea of the condition of the children. We are just saying these are young children trying to study and they did nothing, so why are you trying to take dirty money from their families?

This (kidnap of Islamic pupils) actually proves to the nation that the bandits are not really indoctrinated, they are just looking for money and I think that this is a good prognosis. They are not targeting a religion; they are not ideologues, which are difficult to deal with. We should not forget that they are not educated, formally or informally. They are just going about with cattle, and suddenly they found a lucrative way of finding money.

But with good engagement, education and enticements like jobs and other things, they will leave this work. But we need a partner and we need the government to understand. Individuals like me alone cannot do it.

All those we met (have stopped kidnapping), except for one of them who is kidnapping again, and he told us his reason, that he was neglected and he thought we had the mandate to negotiate. But when he realised that we did not have the mandate from anybody, he said he was going back to his business.

So, the earlier we go into engaging them, the better. The ones who have agreed to lay down arms, you can engineer them to take care of the rest.”

Gumi said the Niger State Government had been making efforts to get the children released, adding that the state had limited resources.

He insisted that the government could not protect schools without first finding means to end banditry in the country.

To secure schools, why not engage the bandits. Engage them; they are not many. You can count them with your fingers. How can you guard schools? It is not possible. In the whole North-West, they may not be more than 100,000 bandits. And that is just a drop in the ocean. That is talking about those with weapons; because not all of them have weapons. Ninety per cent of those who have weapons use them to protect themselves against cattle rustlers. They are victims too. Aerial bombardments will only worsen the situation because when you start killing their children, you remember they also have our children,” he added.

Comments

  1. Goverment negotiates with globally recognised terrorists and then kills peaceful protesters and those agitating for self determination.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

EndSARS: Protesters In New York Want SARS Operatives Sacked

 Hundreds of young anti-SARS protesters on Sunday stormed the Nigeria House in New York demanding transparency in the disbandment of the police unit back home. The protesters said operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad found wanting should be sacked and not redeployed. Among them was Stephen “Papi” Ojo, the artist, model, and choreographer who stole the show as the ‘blue-guy’ in Beyoncé’s “Already” music video. The protest started shortly after the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, announced the dissolution of the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad. Adamu also announced plans for a new arrangement to address anticipated policing gaps following the disbandment, and the constitution of an investigative team to probe the alleged cases of rights violations, among others. But the protesters, who bore placards with different inscriptions including, “We no want audio ban”, said they were not buying it. They argued that previous commitments announced by the force to change...

Open grazing ban in South irreversible, Akeredolu replies Malami

  The Ondo State Governor, Rotimi Akeredolu, has tackled the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Shehu Malami, for faulting the ban placed on open grazing in the Southern part of the country. The Southern Governors had at a meeting in Asaba last week banned open grazing and asked the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to address the nation over the increasing rate of insecurity in the country. However, Malami who appeared as a guest on Channels Television on Wednesday faulted the ban, arguing that the governor had no right to do that. Akeredolu, who is the Chairman of Southern Governors’ Forum, spoke in a statement he personally signed on Thursday, titled, ‘ Our decision is irreversible and will be enforced ’. He asked the AGF to challenge the governor’s position on open grazing in court, adding that Malami’s comments were “ unfortunate and wicked ”. Part of the statement read, “I have just read the press statement credited to the Attorney...

Biden Announces Purchase Of 200M Vaccine Doses

  President Joe Biden announced a series of measures on Tuesday aimed at ramping up coronavirus vaccine allocation and distribution, including the purchase of 200 million more vaccine doses and increased distribution to states by millions of doses next week. With those additional doses, Biden said there would be enough to fully vaccinate 300 million Americans -- nearly the entire US population -- by the end of summer or early fall. He described efforts to combat Covid-19 as a "wartime undertaking." We now have a national strategy to beat Covid-19. It's comprehensive. It's based on science, not politics. It's based on truth, not denial, and it is detailed," he said. As part of the new efforts announced Tuesday, the US will buy 100 million more doses from Pfizer/BioNTech and 100 million more from Moderna -- the two-dose vaccines that have been granted emergency use authorization by the US Food and Drug Administration. Pfizer and Moderna are working to step up p...