''After talking to them, they are now lowering their bar''- Sheik Gumi

Islamic cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, has said bandits have agreed not to kill the 16 remaining students of Greenfield University, Kaduna still in their captivity.

The bandits had threatened to kill the students if their parents fail to pay N100 million ransom in addition to 10 motorcycles.

Sheik Gumi however says they have been prevailed upon not to kill the students. He said this while speaking when parents of the recently freed students of Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka, Kaduna State, visited him. According to him, negotiation is ongoing for the release of the students of the privately-owned university.

“The talk with the Greenfield University students’ abductors is also going on. You know they threatened to kill all of them after a particular deadline but after talking to them, they are now lowering their bar.

So, we thankful they have stopped killing. And we are still negotiating with them. I hope this Afaka case will also encourage to know that there is hope in negotiation and release the children.”

Speaking on his role in the release of the abducted forestry college students, the Islamic cleric said.

“The role myself and former President Olusegun Obasanjo played in the release of the 27 Afaka students is the role of mediators because the fight is not between us and them but between the bandits and the government.

What we understand is that these people are trying to attack the government by attacking the government institutions and take innocent children.

Having understood that we came to the conclusion that this is not a hopeless situation and that we can really go in and negotiate for the release of these children which we did after so many ups and downs.

But in the long run, a conclusion was reached and these children are out. So, we are happy that, all of them are out and none was killed.”