BBC News
By Beverly Ochieng & Jewel Kiriungi
BBC Monitoring
image copyrightSheihk Gumi Facebook
image captionSheikh Gumi (L) also tries to dissuade bandits from criminality - on one occasion handing out Islamic books
A prominent Muslim cleric acting as a self-appointed middleman has emerged as a divisive figure in the kidnap-for-ransom crisis plaguing northern Nigeria, which has seen more than 800 students seized in recent months.
Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, a former army captain, was involved in Wednesday s release of 27 students abducted in March from a forestry college in Nigeria s Kaduna state.
Such is his influence that the parents of the freed students paid him a thank you visit where he assured that 16 other students abducted from Greenfield University in Kaduna state in April, would not be killed.
MILITARY PENSION: A REFORMER ON DUTY thisdaylive.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thisdaylive.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Magnus Onyibe.
From cattle rustling to ‘human rustling’, all seem to be fair game to the bandits disguised in the garb of cattle rearers now testing the skills and will of the new chiefs of our armed services.
The spate of killings, abduction of students and the general state of insecurity in our country are so grim that putting a value to life in Nigeria has become such a harrowing experience due to the horrific pains of counting dead bodies. That is going by the terrifying account given by Mike Inalegu, one time Sole Administrator of a local government in Benue state , who stated that in Agatu, about 6,000 people were killed between 2013-15 due to herdsmen-farmers conflicts.
Vanguard News
Stopping the elites from replacing Nigeria
On
By Owei Lakemfa
I leapt for joy last week. News about Nigeria is usually depress- ing. But this one was elating. I had in my column titled: ‘A country led by the blind and deaf ’ highlighted the case of 14-year-old Habiba Gwaram, a student of Government Girls Secondary School, Jangebe, Zamfara State. On February 26, 2021 she had been kidnapped by bandits along with 316 schoolmates. But when the captives got to the kid- nappers den, Habiba met her father, Mallam Iliya Gwaram who, along with her sister, had been kidnapped three months earlier.