The South-West Zone of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to arrest the controversial Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi over his persistent calls that bandits should be given amnesty and not declared as terrorists.
PFN made the call on Wednesday in Lagos, at a conference attended by its chapters in the six South-West states.
According to the Christian body, Gumi should be the number one suspect, especially with his romance with the bandits.
PFN leader in the zone, Archbishop John Osa-Oni, said Gumi’s utterances were questionable and as such should be held responsible by the Federal Government.
He argued that Gumi would have been arrested if he was to be a Christian leader.
Meanwhile, Gumi had on different occasions, called for bandits to be given amnesty to make them to lay down their arms.
Specifically, the cleric who tagged the crisis between herders and farmers a “tribal war”, also urged farmers across the country to allow herdsmen to protect their forests.
Also, following the call by some Nigerian leaders that the bandits, who have been causing mayhem across should be declared terrorists, Gumi again kicked against the move, saying it would come with grave consequences.
While noting that the terrorism tag on the bandits would attract some unemployed youths, the cleric said: “The acts the Bandits are committing now in NW have gradually over time become tantamount to terrorism because wherever innocent people are fatal victims it’s pure terrorism.
“Yet, innocence these days is relative. We agreed if their children and women are also killed, they are guilty by association or collateral damage, so also the bandits may think the same way.
“It’s right for vigilantes to lynch Fulanis herdsmen or anyone that looks like them by profiling but wrong for the herdsmen to ransack villages in retribution. They are pushed to believe it is an existential war and in war, ethics are thrown to the winds.”
