Mamu: Arresting people unjustly is also terrorism, Gumi tells DSS

Controversial Islamic scholar, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, has called the arrest of bandits’ negotiator, Tukur Mamu, by the Department of State Services (DSS) unjust and an act of terrorism.

Gumi stated this during his weekly preaching at Sultan Bello Mosque, calling on the DSS to either release Mamu or charge him to court.

He argued that anybody arrested over an alleged crime needs to be taken to court within 24 hours.

KEMI FILANI NEWS had reported that Mamu was arrested alongside his family members in Cario, the capital of Egypt, and later flown back to Nigeria.

Mamu said he was arrested and detained at the Cairo International Airport for 24 hours while going to Saudi Arabia for lesser Hajj.

The DSS operatives picked up the Kaduna-based publisher and his family members immediately after their plane landed at the Kano airport on Wednesday and took them to Abuja.

According to Gumi, Mamu was arrested because of his role in assisting victims of terrorist attacks.

The cleric added that Mamu’s arrest was God’s way of testing his faith and prayed that Mamu overcomes it.

“Take him to court to face trial. Keeping him in custody despite being a family man was just to intimidate him. This intimidation is also terrorism. Arresting people unjustly is also terrorism; just like the terrorists do by going to somebody’s house to kidnap him.

“How can we continue in this situation under a government that is about to wind up? Our hope is for them to finish successfully not in a bad light. It’s not about Tukur Mamu, you all know that whenever they arrest innocent people, I always talk, not to talk of someone that I know and I’m only advising the government to release him so that we can apologize to him to forget what happened.”