Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, says with the instant results that his interaction with bandits have produced, it would be unfair for anybody to call for his arrest.
He further described those calling for his arrest as clowns because they were not privy to the fact that he visited the bandit camps in the company of government officials.
The cleric had been under fire for interactions with the bandits responsible for multiple abductions in the North, calling on the government to grant amnesty to the criminals.
Reacting to his critics in an interview with Daily Post, Gumi boasted of the effectiveness of his intervention and meetings with bandits.
“I’m not the first person that started dialoguing with them (bandits),” Gumi said, noting that Kaduna and Zamfara State governors, Nasir El-Rufai and Bello Matawalle, respectively, have done the same.
Gumi also said, “I only added value, and I find them to be religious; religion is the only thing that teaches you that blood has sanctity. So this is the religious angle.
“I’m trying to gather them and teach them that there is sanctity to life,” he added, stating that he “never visited these bandits without a government official, but they are in the background.”
“All the bandits we met were with government officials, and that is why I said those calling for my arrest are clowns.”
“My interaction with bandits has yielded instant results. When you are dealing with somebody engrossed in criminality, if you approach him as a policeman, you will have a problem but if you come to him as a pastor, he will confess all his sins to you.
“So we approach them as clergy, and they feel comfortable to vomit all their problems. Hence, we see how we can appease and help them.
“We are not approaching them as an authority but from the spiritual angle. You know every human being has that spiritual influence, and that is why we are adopting that,” he said.
