The Director-General of the Progressive Governors Forum (PGF), Dr. Salihu Lukman, has faulted the Islamic cleric, Sheikh Abubakar Gumi, for calling on the authorities to grant amnesty to bandits in the country.
The APC chieftain said Gumi’s position was not only self-serving but clearly a threat to national security.
The PGF boss, in a piece entitled: “Nigerian Democracy and Challenges of Nation Building”, yesterday in Abuja, said bandits cannot be placed on the same pedestal with Niger-Delta militants granted amnesty by the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua led administration.
Lukman, who applauded the authorities for waging a full-scale war against the bandits in the North-west geopolitical zone said there is an urgent need to regulate the conduct of religious leaders in the country.
He said: “With all the lamentation about the alleged inability of the APC-led government of President Buhari to mobilise a response to end the security challenge in the country, around the second week of August 2021, the narrative is beginning to change. In line with the instructions of President Buhari, the security agencies are speaking the language best understood by the bandits and insurgents.
“All arms of the security agencies are fully mobilised and are working in a coordinated way to crush the bandits in Zamfara, Katsina and Kaduna forests. Interestingly however, some Nigerian leaders have dismissed the military’s on-going campaign to crush the bandits”.
Lukman also applauded the role played by Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Air Peace, Allen Onyema in the recent victory of the Super Eagles in Cape Verde.
Onyema had told the players that ‘you are not just going to play a football match, you’re going to carry on your young shoulders the aspiration and the hope of a nation almost in distress”. He appealed to them to do everything they can to win the match for the country. He pledged an award of N20 million once they win the match.
He said his inspiring words of encouragement to those young Nigerian players, among many other positive factors, must have contributed to the 2-1 victory of the Super Eagles against Cape Verde on Tuesday.
