Worrisomely Disturbing that Sheikh Dr Ahmad Gumi is taking da’awa to fulani settlements in the bushes across northwestern Nigeria is no longer news. That he visited two key settlements within the strongholds of armed fulani bandits and met with several of the bandits commanders yesterday is being reported in the news.

What is disturbing was an eye witness account of what he saw with his eyes in the bandits strongholds in Zamfara.

According to the eye witness, he saw children carrying big guns all around the settlements. He saw armed young men in trenches. He saw military styled ditches and trenches dug all about the settlements. He saw arms and ammunition brazenly displayed.

In the bandits camp where photographs were allowed, we see the bandits commander in military fatigues holding a rifle while sitting next to Dr Gumi. Behind them one can spot armed bandits displaying ammunition.

We now know that what is referred to as ungoverned spaces are actually territories governed by armed bandits equipped with facilities for military type training and arsenal. This should be disturbing to all Nigerians regardless of geography and ethnoreligious inclinations. For when a ship sinks, all onboard will perish.

While trying to come to terms with the aforementioned reality, someone shared on my facebook wall, in a comment box, a horrible and disturbing video of some bandits raping a poor woman in a very humiliating and degrading manner. Rape is by nature humiliating, but the one in that video was brutally dehumanizing!

My fear that the ship of state is slowly and gradually sinking is reinforced. The Nigerian state is being systematically and systemically weakened from the inside. Someone, or group of ‘someones’, failed to do the right thing at the right time. Poor innocent Nigerians are paying for, and will continue to pay for, his, or their, ineptitude and negligence.

From the first spark to the first flame the Nigerian system appears irresponsive. The fire is now slowly growing, unless it is decisively checked, it will soon become a raging inferno.

Meanwhile the Nigerian people are busy debating whether the armed bandits are Fulani, whether or not all Fulanis are bandits, whether the Fulani bandits have sponsors among non-Fulani city dwellers, whether the armed Fulani bandits are acting out a script based on a certain agenda; and whether the agenda is geared towards 2023 or not etc.

Nigeria needs our prayers for God’s intervention.

Aliyu Ammani

03/02/21