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| Sheikh Ahmad Gumi has been advocating for a non-violent solution to banditry in the North. |
Alhaji Tukur Mamu, a traditional title holder of ‘Dan Iyan Fika in Yobe State, has said the recent military exploits against bandits in Zamfara state, is not the reality Nigerians are made to believe.
Mamu who's an associate of Kaduna based Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, and who shares the believe that a more non-violent approach to the menacing bandit activities in the North, would have been better than the current military campaign which he claims is killing innocent citizens instead of the main target.
Mamu while speaking in an interview with journalists, said those celebrating military attacks in the North, are simply celebrating the killing of innocent women and little children in bandits’ camps, while the real targets are nowhere to be found.
He said, “The simple question is that we should ask ourselves…for example these reports that they are saying that they’ve bombarded this camp and that camp, is there any evidence on the ground?”
“There is a particular forest we visited in Niger State. The whole of the settlement had been bombarded. This settlement has nothing to do with bandits. In fact they showed us two wells full of innocent people, dead, inside, casualties of these bombardments.
“That’s exactly what these bandits were telling us. They said, “Whenever we hear the sound of an aircraft, we run to our caves, and then run. If they will succeed in killing anybody, it is the small children, the wives or the cows."
The monarch also faulted the activities of security agents in tackling banditry and terrorism, saying they did not have intelligence to carry out their operations.
“That’s their own testimony. So you can imagine a country where, for example, bandits would gather in a forest and be celebrating. You don’t even have intelligence to track them and eliminate them. Then for you to say you will succeed in killing them?
“I hear them yesterday, celebrating the reported death of bandit leader. So, for example if you kill one bandit leader and another one emerges, what benefit did you derive? For example you killed Dogo Gide, a person more dreaded than him emerges. When they killed Buharin Daji, Turji emerged. So what’s the success there? And for us to even be celebrating. There is nothing to celebrate, the only thing we can celebrate is that if our military succeeds in crushing them all and they cannot.”
Recall that military through Nigerian Air Force claimed to have killed two bandits’ leaders during air raids last week.