Popular Islamic scholar, Sheikh Gumi, has said that the shoot-on-sight order issued by President Muhammadu Buhari weeks ago is standing in the way of negotiating the rescue of dozens of students abducted from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanization, Kaduna. 

Mr Gumi who has publicly taken the role of holding peace talks and negotiating with bandits told Daily Trust that in his interaction with some bandits, he has been able to identify the bandit leader responsible for the attack on the Federal College in Kaduna but the shoot-on-sight order of the president has frustrated their physical meeting. 

“Those groups we met identified him but we could not reach out to him because of the security implication since the government gave shoot-on-sight order and then the government said no negotiation. So, I don’t want us to go into the bush and the government will think we are encouraging them,” Mr Gumi said. 

Mr Gumi said that he has met over 80 per cent of the leaders of bandits terrorising the northern part of the country and that he and his team would have succeeded in persuading the bandits into a peace deal if they had received encouragement from the government. 

The cleric also disclosed that he and his team have credible intel through his various peace talks, that can assess and outrightly identify criminal acts and the person responsible. 

“If we had encouragement, we would have met all the leaders. All those we met usually offered to support us to negotiate on our behalf, just like what happened in Niger State.

“Presently, our ability has reached the extent that we can identify who is involved in any criminal act. We have identified the leader of those who took the students but he has never attended any peace meeting with us,” he said. 

About a fortnight ago, President Buhari had restated his shoot-on-sight order on anyone found bearing AK-47 illegally. Mr Buhari said that the order was given to curb banditry and the killings in various parts of the country. 

Mr Buhari’s order was severely criticized by notable voices and legal practitioners across the country. Inibehe Effiong, a human rights lawyer described the order as not legal, a play to the gallery and violation of the rule of law as anyone can be in possession of firearms, including security officials dressed in mufti. 

The unwillingness of the leader of a bandit group to make any appearance to the ‘unarmed negotiator’ at the excuse of the president’s shoot-on-sight order apparently underscores the fact that Nigerian security forces are not incapable of decisively dealing with criminals pervading the nation’s countryside, but they mostly rely on the body language of the presidency to act.