Popular Kaduna-based Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, has been a guest of the security agencies who invited him for questioning over his comments on the activities of bandits in the country.
Mohammed Idris, Minister of Information and Orientation, disclosed this on Monday while addressing journalists at the State House, Abuja.
This invitation of Sheikh Gumi for questioning is not unconnected with his recent utterances in the wake of the abduction of many school children at the Kuriga Government Secondary School and the LGEA Primary School in Chikun LGA of Kaduna State.
Following their abduction, the Islamic cleric reportedly offered to dialogue with bandits who abducted the students and a teacher. This however is not the first time Gumi would be offering to negotiate with bandits and kidnappers.
Gumi also accused the federal government of framing up its enemies by tagging them as terrorism financiers after the publication of the identities of 15 entities released by the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) for alleged terrorism financing.
The minister of information while speaking on Gumi’s invitation said that the security agencies will do their work if they feel that the statements made by Gumi are reckless.
“The government will stop at nothing to get any kind of information that is required to solve our problems. The security agencies are up and doing,” the Minister said.
“Sheikh Gumi and any other individual are not above the law, if he has suggestions that are good enough and that are constructive enough for the security agencies to take, they will take.
“But if they think that he is also making some statements that appear to be reckless, he will also be reprimanded.
“There is nobody above the law. Let me put it here. And I’m aware that he has also been a guest of security agencies to answer questions.
“When you make remarks, especially those that border on our national security it is incumbent on our national security to think further, and they are doing just that, no one is above the law”, Idris noted.
On the circumstances surrounding the release of the abducted Kuriga school children, the minister said the federal government did not pay ransom to secure the release of the schoolchildren, adding the federal government maintains a zero-tolerance policy towards negotiating with bandits.