Islamic cleric Ahmad Gumi has asked religious leaders in the South-East and South-West to engage the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Yoruba Nation agitators like he is engaging with bandits in Nigeria’s North-West geopolitical zone.

“I hope another Igbo clergy goes into the IPOB militants likewise and talk sense into them, and another Pastor of Oduduwa land talks against the Igboho secessionist tribal movement by way of sensitizing people to the values of a cohesive nationalism that will guaranty freedom, equality, and justice for all,” Mr Gumi wrote on Facebook Sunday.

The controversial Islamic clergy said he was making headway with his self-appointed mediation with the murderous bandits, boasting, “I have started to get these raw bandits out of their misadventure but unfortunately, I have few helpers and a mountain of antagonists.”

Warning the Nigerian government against declaring bandits terrorists, saying it will have bad consequences for the country, Mr Gumi pushed for diplomacy, stating that “Religious forces can permeate hardened hearts where secular forces cannot.”

Femi Adesina, a spokesperson for Mr Buhari, had once derided Mr Gumi for his relationship with the deadly group that has continued to murder and abduct hundreds of Nigerians across North-Western states, calling the Islamic cleric a “terrorist lover.”

Bandits have in recent time coordinated a series of abduction of hundreds of schoolchildren, forcing schools closure in Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Niger and Zamfara; a development that forced Nigerian lawmakers to charge Mr Buhari to declare them terrorists.

Bandits also shot down a Nigerian Airforce fighter jet in Zamfara in July; raided the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) in Kaduna, killing two and abducting a high-placed security official; and recently bombed the Kaduna/Abuja train.