HardballThe way frontline Islamic cleric Sheikh Ahmad Gumi carries on, he would sooner have the notion accepted that bandits responsible for dastardly criminalities against Nigeria are hapless victims who need protection. By the same token, the brutalised nation is to be perceived as the wicked victimiser needing to urgently repent and restitute against the bandits. That is the gist of the clerics narrative since he embarked on a controversial mission of negotiating with the bandits.In the latest instance, the cleric branded Nigerian journalists criminals for describing the activities of bandits as criminality. Speaking when he featured on Arise Television late last week, he said the media was fuelling insecurity in Nigeria with words being used on bandits; and that for the bandits to surrender, they should not be castigated or referred to as criminals but rather that nice words be used in reporting them. You are emphasising on criminality, even the press (journalists) are criminals too because they are putting oil into fire. These people are listening to you, you should not address them as criminals if you want them to succumb, Gumi said, adding: Youths are ready to put down their weapons, now they hear you call them criminals, how do you want them to cooperate' You have to show them that they are Nigerians, that they should not hurt children and that they should be law-abiding. That is the language we want to hear from the press to assist us in getting the boys. You see, when we talk to them in nice words they are ready to listen to us (and) put their weapons down; but when the language is about criminality, this is what we will keep having.The Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) rejoined to the cleric, saying his utterances showed him up as an abettor and inciter of bandits. Sheikh Gumis attempts to seek amnesty for killers and abductors of innocent citizens, especially school children, is most unfortunate In saner climes, a non-state actor involved in negotiations with criminal elements should have been behind bars, NUJ President, Chris Isiguzo, said inter alia in a statement.Since he undertook negotiating with bandits, Sheikh Gumi has become their advocate and deodorizer; he argues more for redress for them than for victims of their misbegotten enterprise. But his advocacy ignores the terminally ruinous effects of those attacks like people who get killed directly or by association, for which there ought to be hard accounting by the bandits, not to mention the battered psyche of victims who survive the experience. Besides, his mission and advocacy doesnt seem to have had much restraining effect on the bandits themselves. Now, if they are not to be called criminals, what are they: saints'The Yoruba have a saying that you do not because you want to eat beef call cow senior kinsman. But that is what Sheikh Gumi is demanding of us. Cmon, cajoling has its limits.
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