Nigeria, Sept. 16 -- Kaduna-based Islamic cleric, Ahmad Gumi, has reiterated his call for non-violent engagements, such as religious education, for ending banditry in Nigeria's North-west and North-central regions.

Mr Gumi restated this position in a short statement he posted on Facebook on Wednesday.

The cleric argued that military strategy alone is insufficient and called for sending credible Islamic scholars to armed groups hiding in the forests.

"Since 2021-now almost six years since we began preaching to bandits-one cannot help but imagine what could have been achieved if many credible Islamic scholars had been systematically deployed to engage bandits across the North-west, teaching them the sanctity of human life, the inviolabil...