Islamic Cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi on Sunday warned that declaring bandits as terrorists will mark the end of Nigeria as a sovereign and united entity.

Gumi, a retired army military officer and mufti, admitted that the devastation inflicted by rampaging bandits in Nigeria’s northwest amounts to terrorism, but President Muhammadu Buhari’s labelling them as such will invite additional consequences that will consume the entire country.

“The acts the bandits are committing now in NW have gradually over time become tantamount to terrorism because wherever innocent people are fatal victims it’s pure terrorism,” Mr Gumi said in a Facebook post on Sunday night.

The cleric warned that the moment bandits are designated as terrorists, “Islamic for that matter, the direct foreign Jihadist movements will set in in force.”

“Many teaming unemployed youths may find it palatable and attractive. Shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ plus AK47 against a ‘secular’ immoral society where impunity reigns are the magnet for extremists and downtrodden – the majority of our youth. Already these deadly terrorist groups are fighting for the soul of these bandits,” he said.

“This will give criminality a spiritual cover and remove the stigma of discrediting them with such crimes since now they are fighting a ‘Jihad’ as they will claim.”

Mr Gumi said, since Boko Haram has already gripped the North-East, separatist agitators in the South-East and South-West will easily seize on the lawlessness sweeping the northern regions.

“NE is already and is still devastated by this madness for over 12 years. If we allow, terror, to set in into these raw naïve unexposed bandits, NW will be in ruins sooner than later.

“Already IPOB are destroying SE, and Igboho has set the ball of confusion rolling in SW. For those who want to destroy the NW, it’s a good recipe.

“Turn bandits into religious zealots. Tell me, what then remains of Nigeria?” Mr Gumi said.

The mufti also dismissed his critics as “illiterates” for their failure to see his position since he started holding talks with bandits in their hideouts and publicly advocating for a civil resolution to their deadly exploits.

Presidential spokesman Femi Adesina recently smalled Mr Gumi as a “terrorist lover” for his open association with bandits killing and abducting civilians across the North-West. The bandits carried out abductions of schoolchildren that forced school closures in Kaduna, Katsina, Kebbi, Niger and Zamfara. The Nigerian National Assembly also urged Mr Buhari to declare them terrorists. In July, the bandits shut down a Nigerian Air Force jet in Zamfara and also raided Nigerians Defence Academy Kaduna the following month.

Although Mr Buhari acknowledged bandits have been terrorising the country, his administration has been reluctant to declare bandits as terrorists because they have yet to declare a political or religious goal, a key requisite in designating a movement as terrorists under international regulations.