Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, has described people calling for his arrest because of his link with bandits as clowns.

While listing governors who had earlier dialogued with bandits, he said while speaking to Daily Post that he could not be arrested as he was not the first person to hold dialogue with them.

“Even the Kaduna State Governor dialogued with them, Zamfara Governor dialogued with them.

“I’m not the first person that started dialoguing with them (bandits). I only added value, and I find them to be religious; religion is the only thing that teaches you that blood has sanctity. So this is the religious angle,” he declared.

The cleric explained that his mission is to ”gather them and teach them that there is sanctity to life. They cannot kill, rape and so on. This is the addition I hope will work. Note, I never visited these bandits without a government official, but they are in the background.

“All the bandits we met were with government officials, and that is why I said those calling for my arrest are clowns.”

According to him, his dialogue with the bandits has started yielding positive results as they have been sharing information with him that otherwise would not have been gotten by a security agent.

“My interaction with bandits has yielded instant results. When you are dealing with somebody engrossed in criminality, if you approach him as a policeman, you will have a problem but if you come to him as a pastor, he will confess all his sins to you.

“So we approach them as clergy, and they feel comfortable to vomit all their problems. Hence, we see how we can appease and help them.

“We are not approaching them as an authority but from the spiritual angle. You know every human being has that spiritual influence, and that is why we are adopting that,” he said.