Gumi Slams Media: ‘Stop Calling Bandits Criminals…You Are Criminals Too’

Popular Islamic scholar, Sheik Ahmad Abubakar Gumi, has slammed Nigerian journalists for addressing bandits as criminals.

Gumi said by addressing bandits as criminals, journalists were provoking them to carry out more attacks on innocent citizens and residents of the country.

“You’re emphasising on criminality, even the press are criminals too because they are putting oil into fire,” the cleric said during his appearance on Arise TV’s ‘The Morning Show’ on Thursday.

Gumi, who has been meeting with bandits in forests supposedly to appeal to them to stop their attacks on innoncent citizens, warned that if the country’s security challenges must end, the media must stop the use of ‘criminals’ to address bandits.

“These people are listening to you, you should not address them as criminals if you want them to succumb, adding, “Youths are ready to put down their weapons, now you are calling them criminals. How do you want them to cooperate?

“So, you have to show them they are Nigerians, that they should not hurt children, be law-abiding. This is the language we want to hear; the press should assist us in getting the boys.

“You see when we talk with them with nice words, they are ready to listen to us, put down their weapons but when the language is about criminality, killing them, then this is what we will keep having,” he said.

Gumi further stressed that by telling bandits “good things” about them, they would be left with no option than to succumb and stop their activities.

“Let me show you something, I don’t wish you harm but if you are stopped by armed robbers on the road, you will not use the word criminal on them.

“Tell them good things so that you will save yourself. We are trying to save the nation from these youths that have a false sense of authority. The language we use is very important.

“We have a problem now, the proliferation of arms, and there are drugs and semi-illiterate population. How do you deal with it? By castigating them and abusing them in the media?

“You’re talking to yourself; they don’t even listen to you so the best for us is the clergymen, the respected people, elderly try to reach them.

“Put sense into them, when you go, they lower their heads, they will listen, they will start giving excuses, accept their excuse but show them the way out. We are trying to nurture them out of this criminality,” he said.

Gumi noted that the media has the power to bring people together and not spread information that will further divide them.