Islamic cleric, Abubakar Gumi, has advised the Federal Government not to use its failure to end the insecurity in the country to blackmail the media.
Gumi was reacting to the position of the government in an investigative documentary by the BBC Africa Eye that exposed the genesis of the common insecurity in the country, its politics, and how bandits and terrorists virtually took control of several communities across the North West.
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, had said the government would sanction the organization as well as Trust TV.
But speaking during his weekly lecture in Kaduna, yesterday, Gumi said: “The Federal Government’s attempt in trying to find a victim to justify its glaring failure after wasting over $16 billion in the last seven years without any commensurate result on security and efforts to blackmail certain media organizations for their loyalty in reporting the crisis is tragic and should be resisted by all responsible media organizations,” he explained.
He said the documentary reflects the actual happenings in Zamfara, adding that it was done professionally with the highest ethical standards that seek solutions against consistent attacks on powerless communities and wondered why the government would not use such independent discovery to squarely address the crisis.
He noted that what was happening in Nigeria today, especially in the North West zone, was captured by the BBC as more of an ethnic war and reprisal killings and attacks due to the government’s failure to address well-documented examples of injustices that were initially done to the Fulanis.
Gumi said the frightening development now was that the Boko Haram terrorists have penetrated the Fulani bandits, revealing that the bandits were gradually being indoctrinated to their (Boko Haram) religious belief and mission.
He advised the government against trying to find a scapegoat in the media or using instruments of authority to silence or blackmail the media.