I was shocked when an old video of Sheikh Ahmad Gumi went viral, where he appeared to be saying—between panic and prophecy—that a top intelligence official in Abuja had informed him he was on a U.S. kill list, marked for elimination by precision airstrike or drone.

It was an old video, Mr President. And he was talking about how Boko Haram had targeted him for elimination in 2012.

But knowing you, President Trump, knowing that you get your news from social media, I don’t want that story to give you ideas about what else you can do with U.S. drones already in position in Tamale, Ghana, and other West African locations. 

Mr President, whatever you’ve been told about Sheikh Gumi is not correct. I don’t care if Marco Rubio said it or Pete Hegseth. Sheikh Ahmad Abubakar Gumi is no Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi or Qasem Soleimani. Those two were losers.

Mr President, I am using God to beg you: please leave Sheikh Gumi for us.

Despite what people say—despite those who whisper in your ears that he is Nigeria’s Osama bin Laden in the making—Sheikh Gumi is, in fact, a patriotic Nigerian.

How do I know?

He believes in one Nigeria.

And that, as you may have noticed in Nigeria, is the only qualification required to enter the league of patriots. You can steal Nigeria’s resources, oppress a section of the country, and plot against Nigeria’s progress, but what makes you a patriot is that you believe in one Nigeria. Nothing else matters.

It doesn’t matter that Gumi once granted interviews sympathetic to terror groups and their logic. It doesn’t matter that others before him—such as President Bola Tinubu in the 1990s—once spoke against a united Nigeria and later saw the light. The past is the past. 

Redemption is Sheikh Gumi’s second name.

What matters now is this: Sheikh Gumi supports one Nigeria. And one-Nigeria advocates support Sheikh Gumi. Shikena!

He proves his patriotism every day.

He defends the constitutional rights of bandits—sorry, I mean, misunderstood forest entrepreneurs—to live freely in any bush in Nigeria, and when upset, kidnap Nigerians for ransom —he calls that a very patriotic revenge mechanism.

He insists the bandits have no other option until the Nigerian government builds them houses in major cities, just as it has generously done for judges, governors, ministers, senators, members of the House of Representatives, and that privileged group of Nigerians called the Igbo people of the Southeast.

Mr President, I know you may not be familiar with Nigeria, but trust me on this. 

Gumi has also fought tirelessly for the right of Fulani herdsmen to occupy forests across Nigeria—until the government builds ranches, game reserves, buys SUVs, and throws in a few mansions for morale. 

That is his only sin. He wants amnesty for those that people like you call terrorists.

Tell me, Mr President: what level of patriotism is higher than that?

Gumi’s mantra is simple: What shall it profit a man to gain all his Islamic scholarship and sacrifice his soul?

So please, President Trump, leave Sheikh Gumi for us.

Yes, Gumi wants to go to paradise—but not yet. Besides, he doesn’t want a drone to escort him on the journey. He knows the goodies that await him in heaven, but he still has important work to do here on Earth. Some disgruntled Nigerians may have finished with him, but he is not finished with Nigeria.

More importantly, despite social media reports, he has not deleted any of his social media posts abusing you and taunting America. He is a brave man, but he did not announce that he would wear his army uniform and fight if you dared attack Nigeria. That is fake news. He only asked President Tinubu of Nigeria to break all of Nigeria’s diplomatic relationships with the United States. 

Don’t mind him, Mr Trump. The man, Gumi, is unaware that you are holding Tinubu by the balls, given everything the U.S. Justice Department has in his FBI & DEA files. It is people like Tinubu that make you coin the great phrase, FAFO.

Gumi is smart enough to know that deleting everything does nothing. He knows that your FBI experts can locate deleted posts in the cloud, at data centres in Northern Virginia and Phoenix, and even in outer space. 

Gumi knows that deleting the posts will not delete them from the hearts of all those who read them and believed every word that came out of his mouth.

And as he firmly believes, as a sheikh in good standing, international law applies to him retroactively. You cannot send a drone after a man who is proud of posts on his timeline. That would be unconstitutional, ungodly, and grossly unfair.

Additionally, consider the potential diplomatic fallout that may follow.

You wouldn’t want Sheikh Gumi calling Saudi Arabia’s crown prince to cancel all those business deals your children and son-in-law signed. He can do that with one phone call. He doesn’t even need to make the call from Mecca, where he has been banned from entering.

Think carefully, Mr President. You don’t want to annoy the crown prince.

In case you ignore this golden advice from me, if you capture Sheikh Gumi and bring him to New York, where will you find a castrated ram to slaughter for him every day? Who in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn will cook Tuwo Shinkafa to his satisfaction?

Be reasonable.

You may not know this, but Sheikh Gumi is a former Nigerian army officer. He has fought for Nigeria before and is willing to fight again—if properly motivated. Surely there are ways to utilise such talent. You don’t want to waste a Tomahawk missile on such a talent.

Lest I forget, he is also a doctor, unlike Nicolas Maduro, who was a bus driver.

That alone makes him a premium catch.

In New York, he could even become the chief imam to the city’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani. He could become your man in America using his Islamic scholarship obtained in Osama bin Laden’s Saudi Arabia to visit Muslims in Dearborn, Michigan, and Minneapolis, Minnesota, and urge them to stay away from honour killing, Sharia, punishing apostates, and fatwas of all manners. He can even straighten out the Somalis in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, for you.

Mr President, please consider this.

Sheikh Gumi has a lot to give the world. And Nigeria has unfinished business with him.

Please, tamper justice with messy.

Yours truly,
Rudolf de Passé.

Writing under the pen name Rudolf de Passé, Rudolf Okonkwo is the author of “The Secret Letters of President Donald J. Trump, age 73.” His latest book is “A Kiss That Never Was.” He teaches Post-Colonial African History at the School of Virtual Arts in New York City.