Gumi Says Bandits Need Preaching, Not Bullets. I Have Questions.

Sheikh Ahmad Gumi posted on his Facebook page today, Wednesday, that Nigeria would have recorded tremendous success if more Islamic scholars had been deployed to preach to bandits in the North-West.

His exact words: "Since 2021 up until now, almost six years since we began preaching to bandits, one cannot help but imagine what could have been achieved if many credible Islamic scholars had been systematically deployed to engage bandits across the North-West." He added that the aim is to teach them the sanctity of human life and the Islamic prohibition of killing and oppression.

Here is my problem with this position. When a man has seen his brother's head removed on a farm road in Kaduna, when a girl has been carried into the forest and returned pregnant or not returned at all, you cannot go and sit with the people who did it and debate fiqh. The families of the victims are not asking for a seminar. They are asking for their people back.

Gumi says many bandits are products of ignorance and social neglect. That may be true. But the man whose house was burnt in Zamfara does not care about the sociology of the person holding the AK-47. He wants the shooting to stop. If you want to preach, fine. But let the military handle the ones who have already crossed the line.

Am I the only one that thinks this whole "dialogue with bandits" approach has been tested for six years and we are still burying people? Let us argue this honestly.