This is why the continued presence of Sheikh Ahmad Gumi’s son within the Nigerian Army deserves serious national scrutiny. This is not an emotional argument, nor is it rooted in ethnic or religious prejudice. It is a hard, uncomfortable national security conversation—one Nigeria has avoided for too long, often to its own detriment.
Sheikh Gumi’s Troubling Public Record
Sheikh Ahmad Gumi is not an obscure cleric speaking into the void. He is a prominent Islamic scholar with significant influence, media access, and proximity to power. Over the years, he has repeatedly made statements that place him dangerously far from the lived realities of terrorism victims in Nigeria.
He has insisted that Nigerians must “learn to live” with foreign Fulani herdsmen who have crossed into the country, many of whom are armed and operating outside Nigerian law. He has framed violent actors as “neighbors” rather than enemies and warned against labeling them as terrorists. In isolation, such language may sound like peace advocacy. In context, however, it becomes something far more disturbing.
Nigeria’s rural communities have been turned into killing fields. Entire villages have been wiped out. Schoolchildren have been kidnapped in their hundreds. Farmers have been slaughtered on their own land. Women have been raped, and traditional rulers assassinated. Against this backdrop, consistently softening the language around armed groups is not peacebuilding—it is moral distortion.
The Power of Language in Terror Conflicts
Language shapes perception, and perception shapes behavior. When Sheikh Gumi refers to terrorists—directly or indirectly—as “their children,” he collapses the line between criminality and innocence. Terrorists are no longer killers; they become misguided youths. Kidnappers are no longer criminals; they become negotiable actors. This framing strips victims of their humanity while restoring dignity to those who destroy lives.
At one point, Sheikh Gumi described mass kidnapping of schoolchildren as a “lesser evil,” arguing that negotiation is possible and that bandits now value human life. This statement alone should have ended any debate about neutrality. There is no lesser evil in kidnapping. There is no humanity in terror. A crime does not become acceptable because ransom can be paid or negotiations can occur.
Parents whose children were dragged into forests at gunpoint did not experience a “lesser evil.” They experienced terror in its rawest form. Communities forced to pay protection taxes to armed groups are not living with neighbors; they are living under occupation.
Distorting the Reality of Terrorism in Nigeria
One of the most dangerous aspects of Sheikh Gumi’s rhetoric is the deliberate blurring of identities. Along Nigeria’s porous borders—particularly the Nigeria–Niger axis—security forces have repeatedly encountered ISIS-linked fighters operating from forested enclaves. These are not confused local youths. They are trained extremists connected to transnational terror networks.
Groups such as Lakurawa did not emerge from simple misunderstandings between farmers and herders. They evolved from foreign armed elements from the Sahel who crossed into Nigeria, imposed taxes, enforced their own laws, displaced traditional authorities, and openly challenged the Nigerian state. By any international definition, that is terrorism.
Continuing to describe such groups as “Fulani children” who deserve sympathy is not just inaccurate—it is a deliberate distortion of reality that undermines counterterrorism efforts.
Sympathy Is Not Neutrality
There is a dangerous misconception in Nigeria that sympathy is harmless. It is not. Emotional and ideological sympathy toward violent actors creates space for their survival. No one repeatedly defends killers, excuses crimes, and reframes terror without deriving some benefit—whether influence, access, protection, relevance, or material reward.
Standing between criminals and justice is not a free service. History, both global and Nigerian, has shown that terror networks thrive not just on guns, but on sympathizers who sanitize their crimes and negotiate their legitimacy.
The Army Factor: Where Opinion Becomes a Security Risk
The issue becomes far more serious when this ideological posture intersects with the Nigerian Army. Sheikh Gumi has a son serving as an officer in the military. In theory, a son is not legally responsible for his father’s beliefs. In practice, however, no one grows in isolation from the ideology of their home.
Parents are a child’s first teachers. They shape moral frameworks, emotional instincts, and worldview long before formal institutions take over. Ideas absorbed over decades do not evaporate at the barracks gate. They settle quietly in the mind, influencing judgment—especially under pressure.
The Nigerian Army is not an ordinary workplace. It is built on secrecy, trust, discipline, and absolute loyalty. Officers are exposed to sensitive intelligence, operational plans, troop movements, and counterterror strategies. Even the perception of divided loyalty is dangerous.
Why Perception Alone Is a Threat
National security is not managed on the basis of proven guilt alone. It is managed on the basis of risk. Around the world, military officers are removed from sensitive positions not because they committed crimes, but because the cost of being wrong is too high.
A compromised officer does not need to fire a gun to cause damage. He only needs to leak information, delay action, misinterpret intelligence, or quietly warn armed groups ahead of operations. Silence can be sabotage. Sympathy can be betrayal.
Nigeria has already paid dearly for internal leaks. Terrorists have escaped ambushes with suspicious ease. Military camps have been attacked with precise timing. Soldiers have died because operations were compromised. Whether every allegation is true or not, the consequences are undeniable—lives lost, trust eroded, morale weakened.
The Long-Term Danger of Promotion
Now imagine Sheikh Gumi’s son rising through the ranks. Imagine him becoming a senior commander with authority over counterterror operations. Imagine him receiving direct orders to dismantle bandit networks, crush Boko Haram cells, or neutralize kidnapping routes.
Those orders would directly contradict the doctrine his father has publicly and consistently preached. Even if the son attempts to obey, doubt will follow every decision. Subordinates will question. Superiors will worry. The public will lose confidence.
A military cannot function effectively under suspicion. War does not tolerate emotional confusion. You cannot sympathize with the enemy and defeat him at the same time.
Prevention Is Not Punishment
Calling for the removal of Sheikh Gumi’s son from the Nigerian Army is not an act of hatred, persecution, or collective punishment. It is a preventive security measure. He does not need to be humiliated or accused of a crime. He simply should not occupy a position where his background creates a clear and present risk.
National security is built on caution, not sentiment. In a country bleeding from insecurity, precaution is wisdom—not injustice.
A State Cannot Serve Two Masters
Sheikh Gumi cannot continue to occupy a space where he simultaneously defends terrorists and benefits from the protection of a state his rhetoric undermines. No serious country allows the immediate family of a figure widely perceived as a terror sympathizer to occupy sensitive military positions.
Those who oppose this argument must answer a simple question: if nothing is at risk, why resist precaution? If loyalty is unquestionable, why fear removal? In matters of survival, hesitation is not neutrality—it is weakness.
Conclusion: Closing the Cracks Before They Become Graves
Sabotage does not always arrive loudly. Sometimes it comes quietly—wrapped in sympathy, family ties, religious authority, and misplaced tolerance. Nigeria is already paying too high a price for ignoring early warning signs.
Removing this risk now is cheaper than paying for it later with soldiers’ lives and civilian blood. This is not about vengeance. It is not about ethnicity or religion. It is about survival.
A nation at war must close every crack the enemy can exploit. Right now, this is one crack Nigeria cannot afford to ignore.
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