Gumi said this while reacting to the abduction of over 280 schoolchildren and staff members in Kaduna State last week
Controversial Islamic scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi has claimed that gaining access to terrorists is easy if the Nigerian Government is ready to dialogue with them.
Gumi said this while reacting to the abduction of over 280 schoolchildren and staff members in Kaduna State last week
Gumi during an interview with Arise News TV on Thursday night insisted that the best way to rescue all the abducted children and other residents was for the government to use a non-kinetic approach.
Gumi, via an earlier press statement, had said he was ready to engage the terrorists who kidnapped the schoolchildren from Kuriga Government Secondary and LEA Primary Schools in the Chikun local government area of Kaduna State.
Giving more clarification on his relationship with the terrorists, the Islamic cleric said they were becoming more hostile because the Nigerian government had been threatening to kill them.
He said, “We are seeing that these bandits are getting more and more vicious. Before they didn’t do what they do. Now they are heading to softer targets, as the military man has said.
“We can only attribute that to the kinetic approach, which is overemphasised when we talk. When we hear politicians talking about kinetics, nothing is done to overcome these people.
“But let me give you an example: we are fighting bandits. They are anonymous, they are phantoms. How can you fight somebody you don’t even know? We said let’s go in, let’s know them, let’s map them out. Map them means know who they are, where they belong or all this intelligence information is virtually not there.
“How can you know somebody from satellites, from drones? And the harsh-handed approach to the matter is what is making it worse. Now they are kidnapping small children and they are threatening death, which they didn't do before. So I think what ought to be done is let’s go back to the drawing board and truly be non-kinetic.
“You know when we had victims of the train attack, a committee was set by the military then and the former government and they were able to contact them, the same way journalists have been able to contact them. They are not that difficult to contact.
“But what you don’t know is their foot soldiers. You need a programme just like you have for the Niger Delta, a programme which will bring them out of their forest. With the promise of educating them, giving them healthcare, giving them a peaceful life.
“This is how you entice people to avoid violence and militancy. But when you continue dropping bombs. In fact, they drop bombs on their children and women so they will find no sympathy and empathy for our own children. ‘This is it. An eye for an eye. This is what is happening. So we have to change our tactics. We have to change our style. What we have been doing has not been productive, but we think that if we can have a chat with them, we can have a dialogue with them and understand them and promise them what we can do and I think that is a better way.”