Human rights body wants Islamic cleric Sheikh Gumi arrested over Kaduna train attack

CIVIL society group the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (Huriwa) has asked the federal government to arrest controversial Islamic cleric Sheikh Abubakar Gumi over the recent Kaduna train attack by terrorists.

In Monday evening, armed hoodlums attacked the Abuja bound train, killing some passengers and abducting others in a gruesome attack. In an immediate response, Huriwa called on President Muhammadu Buhari to without delay sack Major General Babagana Monguno his national security adviser and Major General Bashir Magashi, his defence minister.

As the death toll mounts Huriwa has now called for the arrest of Sheikh Gumi, the influential Islamic cleric who had persistently defended the bandits and other marauders in northern Nigeria. Huriwa's national coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, argued that Sheikh Gumi has been outspoken as a bandit sympathiser over recent years.

He added that the sheikh demanded a blanket amnesty for daredevil bandits in the past and has ventured into the forests of Zamfara, Katsina, and Niger states to hold discussions with the dreaded bandits. Huriwa also said it was not enough for the regime of President Buhari to declare bandits as terrorists as gazetted by the federal government in January 2022 following the order of Justice Taiwo Taiwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja.

Comrade Onwubiko said: “Why did the federal government capture Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and slam a blanket ban on his Indigenous People of Biafra, only for pouring invectives against the person of Buhari from his London base? However,  the same government through the national security adviser Major General Babagana Monguno openly endorsed the clandestine meetings of terrorists with Sheikh Abubakar Gumi of Kaduna.

“This is double standards and this is the reason why there is so much injustices all around this administration. Why is the government pretending like it never heard or read in the media when Sheikh Gumi said there will be war if the then bandits are declared as terrorists and that he will no longer interface with them after the declaration.

“Why is the government not inviting Sheikh Gumi to say more than he knows about these terrorists he so much defended and even compared them to the Niger Delta resource control agitators? Why is Gumi bigger than the law but Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has been languishing in a Department of State Security underground cell and allegedly undergoing torture."