What Sheikh Gumi Told Me After Meeting With Bandits – “He Wept” After Visiting Their Camp

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has shared new information from a private discussion he held with prominent Islamic cleric Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, focusing on the cleric’s controversial visits to bandit hideouts in Nigeria’s forests.

Obasanjo said he invited Sheikh Gumi to his home after the cleric’s widely publicized trips to meet with armed groups in the bush. The former president wanted to hear directly about what Gumi had seen.

According to Obasanjo, Gumi provided a blunt and troubling firsthand account. He told the former president that the bandits’ forest bases were much more secure than official reports suggested. Gumi insisted that any claims by security forces about successfully entering these specific areas were false.

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“The first thing he said is that where those boys are they’ve fortified themselves,” Obasanjo recalled. “Even if any security personnel claimed they had gone into the area, they were lying to you.”

But Obasanjo said the cleric reserved his strongest emotion for describing the people in the camps. Gumi reportedly became very upset when talking about the young boys he encountered.

“He said what made him weep was [seeing] boys of 13, 14, 15 years, soaked in drugs and carrying guns,” Obasanjo stated.

The former president explained that Gumi’s account painted a picture of deep complexity—heavily defended camps that are hard for the military to reach, and inside them, teenagers who are both victims and armed combatants. These children, Gumi suggested, are exploited, given drugs, and trained to use weapons.

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The discussion also touched on the difficulty of carrying out security operations in such terrain. Obasanjo noted that Gumi talked about the need for better intelligence and careful planning to avoid more bloodshed.

This revelation from Obasanjo provides a rare glimpse into the informal discussions that happen around Nigeria’s security crisis. It points to a gap between some official statements and the situation described by someone who has been inside the camps.

The details about fortified hideouts and the use of drugged child fighters add a disturbing layer to the public understanding of the bandit groups operating in Nigeria’s forests, emphasizing the severe human and tactical challenges involved in addressing the violence.