 All right welcome back it's still the breakfast and plus TV Africa and we're still focusing on security vis-a-vis all that's happening in Keduna State with the release of the Afarka student and of course issues of umbandetry, kidney pain and of course you know talking about pain you know ransom and of course the issue of you know amnesty as well and we are being joined by a popular cleric Sheikh Ahmad Gumi this morning to look at all of the issues yet again. Good morning Sheikh many thanks for joining us on plus breakfast. Good morning Sheikh Gumi good to have you. Good morning it's a pleasure for me. All right first of all let's say congratulations to the Keduna State government and of course indeed all the family friends of the students who got released on Wednesday can you run us through exactly what happened reports say it was an intervention by you and of course for my president Olusiago Obassinger what are the issues and that was any money paid to secure the release of the student. Okay first of all we are all happy that it has come to a very pleasant conclusion that no no life was lost and this is the most important thing. Chief Olusiago Obassinger being a former president a man of connection we realize has since been concerned about what is happening in this country and there has been trying to make contacts to see if he can get people who will make him understand what is happening actually and this is one of the good qualities of a leader to ask people who should know and this is how we came about going to see him and try to explain to him what is happening and also joining the initiative to see that we bring an end to mandatory Keduna things and in general insecurity in especially in other region and Nigeria as you all because it's something that now has affected every region of the country it's becoming pandemic so this is how it came about we had two meetings and we formed a committee that she will try to get into contact with the relevant people to see how we can get on Keduna persons released from the from the second up in our detention all right shake me can you confirm to me if any ransom was paid to the bandits for the release of the 27 schoolgirls and boys yes i can say there is no ransom paid but in the sense look at it this way these people have abducted children they are demanding for 500 million lira and nothing else this is there was a standoff between them and the government and we understand they were taking the government because they're taking a government institution and the money the bar is very high because they were expecting something from the government and there was a stand standoff so we went in between negotiate with them try to see that they dissuade and free these children so in negotiations you don't ask what happened behind the door since the parents paid nothing and the government paid nothing so as far as we are concerned no ransom is paid all right shake go me you talked about negotiations with the bandits specifically can you tell us what their demands were you know that necessitated the release of the students from what we read in the dailies and from other reports a particular bandit was exchanged for the release of these students can you confirm to us you see the process of reconciliation and negotiation should not be in the open especially as i've told you now only god knows how many people are there in detention because when we were in niger state one of the bandits leaders stood up or were discussing because they gathered themselves saying telling his own colleagues look if we are really serious about this matter of peace he said we should release the thousands he's mentioned thousands of those kidnaps in the bush so we realized there are a lot of Nigerians who are unprivileged they are still there we don't we don't like to speak in specific details the way the price will like it because the life of other Nigerians is at stake i'm telling you as i'm talking of now but now we have seen way to solve this problem by engagement by dialogue by all possible means we have a politician who said when the chimo girls were abducted in 2014 or 15 he said the government should do anything possible anything without any exception anything possible to get lives who are after lives now we're not after the means between secure lives but this is only thing we can tell the population uh nigerians to be patient with us we free inshallah we free all the captives um shake me in the in time past you've talked about you know your stance regarding terrorism banditry kidnapping and all of that and recently in an interview one of the newspapers you said that one of the reasons why terrorism persists in nigeria is because bandits are being marginalized could you explain what you what you might mean by that statement yes you see that's why i always continue to to press if only so go about san joh in fact i didn't know that we have such a great leader until just recently unfortunately i was one of his ardent critics when he was in government i didn't even know i get close to him but now after getting close to him i realized how much we missed uh this gentle mind this is the kind of leader we want who wants to go into the depth not just to stop at uh newspaper headings which are almost in inevitably deceiving and they don't really reflect the true happening in in in the in the issue uh so um what i want people to understand is this banditry this so is a tip of an ice bug of a mirage of problems that are happening in our forest it's not only the bandits that are there they are a big population maybe amounting to almost nine million by a rough estimate by studies on nomads nine million people hold hostage by armed bandits so when you want to fight bandits they behind them a big population of nomads you end up killing more and more innocent people than actually the bandits that's why approaching this issue has to be really studied intellectually executed and there are many ways of doing it intellectually and i hope with the recent initiative and alliance with people of understanding i think we are coming to see the end of this banditry we just need cooperation of the press not to be sensational not to be trying to take side in this issue the issue is more than just banditry as i've said it's just a tip of an ice bug the knackings are an end result of this problem and fight under which need to be addressed um shei gumi i'm not sure i heard you right but did you just say that nine million people are in captivity in nigeria nigerian forests specifically you said yes i am having some problems here okay we're just ready to confirm what's yes we can hear you now okay anata go yes shei gumi if you can hear me you mentioned a statement that in order to you know clarify did you say there are nine million people in forest in nigeria who are in captivity yes it's just like when there's a military junta that takes a data above overthrow a democratic government it's just a few military officers taking a whole country into ransom when you have a military who is just like that amtman in the forest i said nomadics are almost four and nine point four million nomads in our forest so when you think the forest is only occupied by by bandits then you have you have a misconception they are they are political civilians there but they are also under the influence or command or they are i can say they are also prisoners under these bandits so until when you dismantle that association then i think you will be able to effectively tackle the problem of bandit okay i i don't understand where you're coming from now but really um shei gumi you seem to have advocated for amnesty for bandits in recent time but don't you think that people who kidnap people people who kidnap students who kill women and children don't you think that it has to be punished under the law okay since you have understood the parable let's go back to the my parable maybe you can understand it better a young officers took over government forced the population into submitting to the authority then suddenly somebody say let's negotiate with this junta military junta so that they give power back and then somebody will tell me no they have tested power they will not they will not give power no whether it's pressure in the right place they will hand over power to the civilians so this is what i'm saying these bandits we need to follow them approach them and see the psychology and see the etiology what causes banditry when we put all this together then the approach which the nation can do is to circumvent the bandits and somehow intellectually remove power from them but you can't do them by facing them face to face face to face who costs a lot of bilateral damage you damage yourself and damage them and not them you know the civilians that is under them in fact the environmental catastrophe that is happening will be so and not be bearable and also you know and now more than 20 percent of agricultural land now it's under their their influence people are not farming anymore so we fear that hunger may eventually come and i can also add here just recently two days ago i was able to reconcile between two families all right we seem to be having a connectivity issue with the shake hello shake are you still there all right we apologize for that yes we'll try and reconnect with the shake you know really important questions we need to ask regarding his stance on you know amnesty you know the marginalization that he talked about yes he says the bandits have been neglected recently in an interview he said the government should make a budgetary allocation or provision for the bandits and we need to really understand where he's coming from shake for joining us all right uh shake let's get back to i just i still want to talk more concerning the issue can you hear me shake i want to still talk about the issue of marginalization yes i can hear you i can hear you yes i still want to talk about the issue of marginalization marginalization for of the bandits like you have said you know a lot of people different sects in the country have claimed to have been a marginalizer a lot of people calling for a self you know determination cessation and all of that don't you think that if everyone claims to marginalize marginalize in nigeria we have like a big issue in in our hands should all of them be given amnesty so to speak and don't you think all of this just stems from the issue of bad governance that we have had over the years in the country yes you have 100 percent correct is bad governance that led to this problem what you see um when a particular population is totally totally neglected absolutely total let me tell you an example there are two 220 into one budget nothing for the nomadics well i call them nomadics let's remove the bandits the bandits is just the leaders of the nomadics now just like uh when you have a junta controlling an area look at the civilians you know when Saddam Hussein was alleged to have where we pose a mad destruction and there was a sanction on iraq for almost two years and iraqs were faced with hunger but iraqis are not Saddam Hussein you see how they did you think when they were talking this is the same thing now our forest is containing a lot of nomadics which i have said about 9.4 million by study which is an estimation and they are under the the command of these bandits the military bandits are controlling them so now what percentage of our budget goes to them they have children they have women no hospital no schools nothing you they get from the budget and i have said just previously that i was able to reconcile all they say group they reconcile themselves i only came to bring them to open to see that there are good things happening on the ground but for two months now they have reconciled themselves that this year there is going to be farming so one of the full animal who stood up in my mosque was explaining that one of the advantage of this piece is that when their women are sick at least they can get a health official to come to their area to attend to their woman just imagine the bush the this health attendant you are talking about is not anyway qualified it's just something who maybe is by it's not a professional they don't even have professional health care that's why that's why doctors without borders came to me they are so concerned about the people in the bush doctors without borders they are concerned about Nigerian population the bush coming to say let's let's follow you so that we go and look at the health status of these people borders without the doctors without borders are not Nigerian what is the Nigerian woman thinking about its own people in the bush without any medical care without schools without and when you leave a big population like that without education what do you expect we expect them to be matriculating chocolate to be distributed to us Shagumi we understand where you're coming from you know talking about the infrastructure debt in those areas but that's many who people argue is the responsibility of the state government you know if for example it's in Kano state or let's take Hadoona state and you're saying there is no hospital you know for health care there are no schools that's the responsibility of the state government to provide those things for that community not just to provide that for bandits so why you know I need to ask yes yes yes you see why then would you say shagumi provision right away from the central government the central government is the one that holds the state they pay for everything so if the central government will make an allocation for rural development rural education then there won't be any problem shagumi there are budgetary exaggeration the states shagumi are being terribly terribly bad the local governments are being worse even than them because they are closer to them they can even organize them as we are trying to do now to organize them to self help let them help themselves they have cows they have this is what we are trying to do but this basic in logic as you see it it's not simple to learn because there are people who are generally unlettered people they don't even what do you call it have any education for them to think for even a you know find leadership that can take care of their problems shagumi I wonder how you know you might be asking for the government to set aside in the national budget money to give bandits who kill people who kidnap people who go to schools and who you know kidnap school children I really don't understand where you're coming from when you know like I've mentioned okay let me let me explain to you these bandits that do the mischief they are less than 0.11 percent of nomads I'm not asking for a minister of banditry I'm asking for a ministry of nomadic affairs like you should understand so we should we should withdraw the carpet from their feet the bandits the bandits are the just small tip of people who are armed and there isn't that arm to to suppress a bigger population who have children you see I was in a forest I saw two young girls maybe after I finish I can send you the clip I reported from them they are very young young girls you see they don't have opportunity to be an uncle like you they are just working around so when I ask them why do you get your money water from they showed me a stream a dead tree stream where the animals also take water this is the situation I said government should quickly come in so she you want in 2008 the the then governor of shuttle bank there was a conference here in kaduna seem to be losing him again but then again I wonder Aneta if a minister of nomadic affairs is what we need you know to sort of all of these issues of unbounded tree you know in Nigeria because we've talked about them governance and extra budgetary you know allocations that end of the day most of those monies are just sunk away and then there are no you know immediate accountability for them all all right the shake is back let's try and conclude them this fort now but shake in your opinion right now you said the the needs there needs to be a minister of nomadic affairs if we need to tackle the growing spate of insecurity in Nigeria but it's that really the way forward judging by the issues of corruption and governance and so much cost of governance in Nigeria is that what you'll be talking about at this moment to keep our children safe of course Nigerian safe generally yes you see that you see when you neglect what when a student who didn't read his exams he had a whole year to read his exams and then when it came to one week then he realized that he has to read he has to go back and read what he's supposed to read for for the whole year we we something we are supposed to be doing before we are not we didn't do we must do it whether it's time is short or not whether we're going to fail or not it's the most Nigeria must do that it must look into the fight of the nomadics who are now under the spell of the bandits and we are trying to see put a gap between them and the bandits because you see if you put a gap between them then the bandits can easily Sheikh Gumi would that not be but the same the wrong notion Sheikh Gumi if you're saying the government should create a ministry of nomadic affairs to cater to the needs of bandits would that not be the government of Nigeria itself sponsoring and funding terrorism I mean how do you see it I didn't say minister of bandits affairs nomadic affairs ministry of nomadic nomadic affairs but the bandits are nomads and are they not but are the bandits not nomads you see what you cater for them Sheikh Gumi you said bandits are the leaders of the nomads you made you made that statement earlier on so if you say they are not leaders they you see they are not leaders they are suppressing the nomads as now they are terrorizing us near and we are terrorized by the same bandits you can see where bandits can come and take children of a federal institution for 56 days Sheikh don't you think you don't under the sky Sheikh don't you think this will be sending the wrong notion nobody can do anything so this so you and me and the and the you call it nomadics are also under under the influence of the bandits so how do we all right all right Sheikh if I should just get a word in Edgewise right now hmm the thing is right now if we created the minister of nomadic affairs just to appease you know the you know the militants and the bandits in the north don't you think pockets of other groups might just spring up maybe from the southwest or the southeast or south south you know renewed militancy again in the southern part of the country calling for some sort of ministry to take care of their own issues at that level yes yes that's why we have minister of Niger Delta affairs that's why we have North Eastern Commission to look directly into the problem of Boko Haram the same thing I'm not talking for something new but the point is let's do it the Niger Delta agitation has reduced from from 100 nice North Eastern Commission has also reduced the influence of Boko Haram so why not apply it also to the banditry why why not and secondly people are saying if everybody who is having agitation will take off arms no not every group of Nigerians can take off arms impossible these bandits were able to take off arms because they had a sanctuary they have a caste to where they can hide themselves from the all right that is the push all right here has the all right thank you so you see so we have to tackle this problem as we tackle the Niger Delta problem as we tackle the Boko Haram this North Eastern Commission looking into the IDPs because millions of people are displaced by Boko Haram all right thank you Sheikh Gumi that's as much as we indeed have time for on the show today yeah yeah thanks for joining us so we'll just have to cross our fingers watch and see if the government would mine across the maybe set up a ministry for nomadic affairs would would follow up on that this time goes on and now some group of you know you know criminals suspected criminals will just spring up somewhere and say that they are terrorized and they are marginalized and they need their own ministry let us know on social media at plus TV Africa would you want the government to create a ministry of nomadic affairs so the terrorists and bandits can be pacified to stop you know the acts of killing and kidnapping of young children is that plus TV Africa once again thank you very much for joining us on the breakfast it's been a ride of security insecurity kidnapping banditry following the good news off the release of the 27 students of the federal college of forestry mechanization in Afarka Kaduna state we spoke to Samuel Alouan minister of security and internal home affairs in the state Sheikh Gumi here as well as Mr Kenneth however you know the government was from can do the state well that's the size of the show we must say a very big thank you to all of you who have in a state with us ultra Monday to Friday my name is Justin and I am Annetta Felix have a great weekend