Sheikh Ahmad Gumi wants the Tinubu administration to hit the brakes on every piece of military teamwork with the United States right now, after American warplanes struck terrorist camps in north-west Nigeria.
Writing on Facebook Friday, the Islamic scholar argued that more US boots or bombs on Nigerian soil will only deepen the security mess and chip away at the country’s sovereignty.
Gumi concedes Islam allows taking on terrorists, but only when the fighter’s “hands are clean.” Looking at Washington’s track record from Iraq to Afghanistan, he doubts the US can claim that kind of moral high ground. “Terrorists don’t fight terrorists,” he said, adding that Nigeria erred the moment it opened the door to foreign troops. Civilian deaths and hidden political agendas, he warned, usually tag along with American airstrikes.
Letting Nigeria turn into “someone else’s battlefield,” Gumi says, could draw anti-US groups into the fray and pour fuel on an already volatile mix. Framing the strikes as protection for Christians, he adds, risks sharpening religious fault lines inside the country.
Air power alone, the cleric insists, will never finish off terror groups; you still need troops on the ground—an assignment Nigeria can handle if its house is in order. “No nation should let its land become a war theatre, and no nation should let neighbours treat them as enemies,” he wrote. If outside help is truly necessary, Gumi suggests shopping elsewhere—name-checking China, Turkey or Pakistan as partners who might prove less toxic.
