BY QUADRI SALIU
Vocal Islamic cleric, Ahmad Gumi, has reiterated his stand that bandits should be granted amnesty, adding that if Nigeria could forgive the initiators of the civil war of 1967-70, bandits should get amnesty.
He mage this remark on Thursday in Kaduna while responding to the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) statement on the issue.
CAN have condemned Gumi for seeking amnesty for bandits who have been killing, kidnapping and torturing innocent Nigerians across the country.
Gumi insisted that granting amnesty to the bandits will bring peace to the country.
“You ask why do we give them amnesty but they told us specifically that they are ready to drop their arms and they don’t want to be pursued with legal actions after they repented.
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“If the country could pardon coup plotters who committed treasonable offences in the era of military administration, the bandits can as well enjoy similar forgiveness even better under democratic rule.
“Since that is the bottleneck and it is only the federal government that can give them that leverage. Strangely, we found out that they are victims too. They were victims of profiling.”
In the past few weeks, Gumi has been making attempts to broker a peace deal with bandits and calling on the federal government to grant them amnesty.