With 6000 soldiers, Buhari triggers insurgency Gumi predicts in Zamafara

To make good his threat, President Muhammadu Buhari has deployed no fewer than 6000 soldiers to Zamfara to secure the state from the grip of bandits killing and kidnapping there.

But going by Islamic scholar Sheikh Abu Gumi, the deployment might be a trigger for a larger problem: insurgency.

On returning from an expedition into the bush to preach repentance to the bandits, Gumi had expressed his fear of escalation in case the federal government adopted a military option.

“What I saw is not banditry. It is insurgency,” said Gumi after his return. He then advised the government to pardon repentant ones among the bandits.

Zamfara Gov. Bello Matawalle bought into the amnesty deal, and has so far received more than 500 repentant bandits.

He gave others two weeks to repent or be dealt with.

The ultimatum hardly started counting when the deployment took place.

Earlier, Buhari, in a statement by his media adviser, countered Gumi’s advocacy, saying the federal government is only worried about  collateral damage—not that the state cannot crush the bandits.

A tweet by Matawalle on Tuesday said the bandits and their sponsors will soon be arrested.

“@MBuhari has approved the deployment of 6,000 troops to complement efforts of the current security forces in the state.