Primate Elijah Ayodele, the head of the INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church, forewarned President Bola Tinubu on Thursday not to permit Islamic cleric Sheikh Ahmad Gumi to bargain for the release of the 285 students who were kidnapped in Kaduna.
According to Primate Ayodele, unless the person is a terrorist, it is not ideal for a civilian to be conversing with terrorists.
He clarified that letting Gumi negotiate will result in other kidnapping attempts and ransom payments, meaning that kidnapping will not soon come to an end.
Ayodele proposed that the government question Sheikh Gumi and, if feasible, prosecute him in order to determine his complicity in the kidnapping attack, given that he seemed to know the terrorists, in a statement signed by his media assistant, Oluwatosin Osho.
He said: ‘’Let us allow the security agencies to get to the root of this issue, civilian interference will destroy our security outfit and turn it into something else. If a civilian negotiates, it means he is part of the kidnappers and any civilian who wants to get involved in the negotiation should be arrested and prosecuted.
‘’Allowing Sheikh Gumi to negotiate for the release of 285 children abducted in Kaduna is not advisable, he should be interrogated and prosecuted except the government is afraid of him.
“If he knows something about the kidnap, he should provide the information for the military and security agencies and not going to negotiate.’’
According to him, it is the duty of Nigerians to assist security services in securing the children’s release and ending the threat to our community.
Primate Ayodele pleaded for people who know the terrorists to come clean for the sake of the country as a whole.
‘’We need to rise up to save these children; it’s a bad signal to the government. We can’t go anywhere and ask for mercenaries, it belittles our security agencies.
“It’s time to take it seriously because they are a new syndicate. This kidnap was a set up, Tinubu should take it seriously or else it will blackmail his government. If you allow negotiation, there will be a big crisis. People are behind the kidnapping.
‘’Security agencies are not to be blamed; if the people are not cooperating there’s nothing they can do. We need to cooperate with them. Allowing this menace to escalate will be tantamount to economic hardship, scarcity and hardship. If they blame security personnel, it will not work.
“These people are within our society and the people need to expose them because they know them. This is not the best time for our country; many things are happening and going wrong. Things will be getting hard if we don’t curb kidnapping by supporting our security agencies, it will collapse the economy. Ransom is not the way to end kidnapping,” he said.
