Kaduna train attack: Why Gumi should be arrested now – HURIWA

In the wake of the rising death toll recorded in an ill-fated Kaduna-bound train from Abuja which was attacked by bloodthirsty terrorists around 6pm on Monday, civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has asked the Federal Government to arrest controversial Sheikh Abubakar Gumi, who have persistently defended the atrocious criminality of bandits and other marauders in Northern Nigeria.

HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, argued that Sheikh Gumi has been outspoken as a “bandits’ sympathiser” over the years including demanding blanket amnesty for daredevil bandits and venturing into the forests of Zamfara, Katsina, and Niger State to hold discussion with the dreaded bandits turning the North-West zone to another place of sorrow, tears and blood.

The rights group also said it was not enough for the regime of President Muhammadu Buhari to declare bandits as terrorists as gazette by the Federal Government in January 2022 following the order of Justice Taiwo Taiwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja.

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Rather, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), should go further and also gazette “bandits’ sympathisers” like Gumi as terrorists sympathisers.

“Why did the Federal Government capture Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and slammed a blanket ban on his Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) only for pouring invective against the person of President Muhammadu Buhari from his London United Kingdom base but the same government through the National Security Adviser to the President Major General Babagana Monguno even openly endorsed the clandestine meetings of terrorists with Sheikh Abubakar Gumi of Kaduna?

“Why is the government pretending like it never heard or read on the media when Sheikh Gumi said there will be war if the then bandits are declared as terrorists and that he will no longer interface with them after the Declaration and now that the war foretold has started and innocent blood is being spilled.

“Why is the government not inviting Sheikh Gumi to say more than he knows about these terrorists he so much defended and even compared them to the Niger Delta resource control agitators?

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According to reports, at least eight out of the 398 passengers, who boarded the ill-fated Kaduna-bound train from Abuja have been confirmed dead by the federal and state governments, while 28 are currently hospitalized and several others still unaccounted for.

The Kaduna State Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan, who confirmed the figures, also disclosed that from the manifest received from the Nigerian Railway Corporation, 398 passengers bought tickets, but 362 were validated.

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The terrorists had bombed the train on Monday evening, killing passengers and injuring scores. The recent attack occurred months after the terrorists bombed a train and rail tracks along the same Kaduna-Abuja route in October 2021.

The marauders had similarly attacked the Kaduna International Airport last weekend, preventing a passenger plane from flying out of the airport and killing airspace workers.

Kaduna, with over six military formations, is assumed to be the military fortress of Nigeria but the state has suffered damning casualties of bandits and terrorists’ heinous attacks in the last two years. According to the Governor Nasir el-Rufai government’s annual security report, 937 persons were killed by terrorists in 2020 while 1,972 others were kidnapped. It also said 3,348 residents were kidnapped in 2021, and 1,192 slain by marauders.