Cleric Sheik Gumi has said there’s no reason why the Federal Government can’t pardon and accept the repentance of bandits, since coup plotters and those that instigated civil war, were forgiven and pardoned.
Speaking in Kaduna on Thursday, March 4, the cleric said if the country doesn’t forgive the Fulani bandits there can’t be peace in the country.
“You ask why do we give them amnesty but they told us specifically that they are ready to drop their arms and they don’t want to be pursued with legal actions after they repented. If the country could pardon coup plotters who committed treasonable offences in the era of military administration, the bandits can as well enjoy similar forgiveness even better under democratic rule.
These people in the bush, who have taken arms; they are criminals. I wonder who is not a criminal. Since Nigeria forgave coup plotters, forgave those that killed. Even those that instigated civil war; civil war that millions of people died, I see no reason why we cannot accept their repentance.
Since that is the bottleneck and it is only the Federal Government that can give them that leverage. Strangely, we found out that they are victims too. They were victims of profiling. So many of them were arrested and punished just for looking like herdsmen,” he said.
