In a fresh wave of controversy, Kaduna-based Islamic cleric Ahmad Gumi has doubled down on his claim that the kidnapping of schoolchildren is a “lesser evil” compared to the killing of soldiers.
Speaking to the BBC in an interview published Tuesday, Gumi insisted that while both acts remain criminal and morally unacceptable, they are not on the same level of severity.
“Saying that kidnapping children is a lesser evil than killing your soldiers — definitely it is lesser,” Gumi said in the now widely-circulated interview.
“Killing is worse than kidnapping, but they are all evil. Not all evils are of the same power.”
The cleric stressed that his remarks were not an endorsement of banditry but a commentary on the moral hierarchy of violence.
Negotiating With Bandits Is Unavoidable
Gumi also pushed back against critics who accuse him of legitimising criminal groups through open dialogue and mediation efforts.
“That phrase, ‘we don’t negotiate with terror’, I don’t know where they got it from. It’s not in the Bible. It’s not in the Quran. In fact, it’s not even in practice,” he said.
“Everybody is negotiating with outlaws, non-state actors — everybody. We negotiate for peace and our strategic interests. If negotiation will bring a stoppage to bloodshed, we will do it.”
He argued that both scripture and global security practice contradict the idea of refusing any form of negotiation.
Responding to accusations that his trips to bandit enclaves embolden criminal groups, Gumi described such comments as misinformed.
“Anybody who thinks that way doesn’t understand the intricacies… I go there with the authorities. I don’t go alone. And I go there with the press.”
Gumi said his last such engagement occurred in 2021, noting that state officials showed interest in dialogue while the federal government “wasn’t keen”.
Military Alone Cannot Solve Nigeria’s Security Crisis
Although he called for stronger military presence in affected zones, Gumi insisted that a purely kinetic approach will fail.
“We need a robust army… but even the military is saying our role in this civil unrest is 95 percent kinetic,” he said.
“The rest is the government, the politics, and the locals. The military cannot do everything.”
‘An Existential War’
Gumi maintained that most of the armed groups he has interacted with are Fulani herdsmen, not city-based Fulani elites.
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“They are fighting an existential war. Their life revolves around cattle. They’ll tell you, ‘This cow I inherited from my grandfather’.”
He argued that the conflict is tied to heritage, land, and survival, and warned that solutions must address local grievances, not just violence.
