A prominent Islamic scholar in northern Nigeria has accused the country’s military of being the beneficiaries of insecurity in the country and not wanting the fight against insurgency to end because of the huge funds allocated for it.
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Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, who has been visiting bandits in the forest in an attempt to negotiate a peace deal, said this on Thursday when he featured on an ARISE News programme.
“The military is not encouraging matters at all because they are the beneficiaries of this insecurity,” he said.
According to Gumi, the bandits are ready to drop their arms and return back to the fold if the federal government will accede to their “simple demands such as building schools for them, hospitals and providing water”.
“Nobody can justify criminality. Criminality is criminality, there is no word that can justify it. But just look at it, IPOB they never had the Nigerian Airforce bombing them, Niger Delta militants never had the Nigerian Airforce bombing them,” Gumi told ARISE News.
“They (the vandits) are complaining mostly against the military killing innocent people. They resorted to buying arms. How did they get the arms? They resorted to kidnapping people which is an end result of these military actions.
“Look, they are ready to drop these arms and return back to the fold of the Nigerians just for simple things; schools, hospitals, water.
“And there is an allegation: the military don’t want this conflict to end because of the billions of Naira they claim for fighting insurgency. So the military is not cooperating.
“I praise the police and the Inspector-general of Police. I give him credit for assisting us to go and meet these people, but the military is not forthcoming, they are not cooperating, I don’t know why.
By Abel Ejikeme
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