Ahmad Gumi, an Islamic cleric, says bandits think they are serving by committing crimes.
Gumi said this in a Facebook post on Sunday while reacting to the seizure of Mines Resistant Armour Personnels (MRAPs) by bandits.
The MRAPs are said to have belonged to the military and were seized by bandits led by Bello Turji, a notorious kingpin known for his activities around the axis of Zamfara state.
A viral video of the bandits jubilating after setting MRAPs on fire has since gone viral on the internet.
In the post, Gumi said the bandits were fighting an “ethnic war that could easily be resolved” at the initial stage.
The Islamic cleric said he warned the authorities against intensifying their kinetic approach against them, but they did not listen.
“Initially Bandits were fighting an ethnic war that could easily be resolved,” Gumi said in the post entitled “Radicalisation of Bandits: I warned against the danger”.
“I warned if the kinetic approach is intensified they will turn into ideologically motivated guerilla warfare. Nobody listened.
“The difference between the former and the latter is that ideological war is mostly intractable, BH (Boko Haram) as an example. They commit the same crime but this time they think they are serving God. The picture is gloomy.”
