___the Islamic cleric said the unidentified caller informed him that his name had appeared on a list of individuals allegedly targeted for assassination.

 

Prominent northern cleric, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, has claimed that confidential security contacts in Abuja alerted him that he had been named among those marked for elimination by the Boko Haram terrorist group.

 

While speaking to worshippers, Gumi disclosed that he received an early-morning phone call from a source he chose not to reveal, who told him that his name had come up during high-level security deliberations in the nation’s capital.

 

“They called me from Abuja to say there was a security meeting,” Gumi said. “I was told that my name had been marked, that I would be eliminated. And who are Boko Haram?”

 

According to him, the caller specifically stated that his name was included on a list of persons allegedly slated for assassination.

 

Gumi further questioned the global narrative around terrorism, arguing that foreign powers, particularly the United States, bore responsibility for the rise of insurgent groups.

 

“Even the Americans say they came to fight terrorists, but who are the terrorists? They are the same ones,” he said.

 

The cleric accused the United States of playing a central role in the emergence of Boko Haram, insisting that the group was part of a broader pattern of violence linked to foreign intervention.

 

“They are the ones doing it — Boko Haram. You will hear about it. Won’t they plant bombs here?” he asked.

 

Gumi also claimed that Nigeria’s worsening insecurity and growing social fragmentation had been fueled by misinformation, destruction and policies he attributed to U.S. President Donald Trump. He lamented that Nigerian political leaders and religious scholars had remained largely silent as the country descended into deeper crisis.

 

According to him, Nigeria became increasingly divided due to what he described as foreign-backed funding and narratives that oppressed citizens and unfairly portrayed Christians as the sole victims of insecurity.

 

He argued that such narratives were deliberately designed to pit Nigerians against one another, fostering mistrust between communities while those expected to offer leadership failed to intervene.

 

“Because of lies, you brought violence. But where are the leaders? What have they done? Where are the scholars?” Gumi asked. “Everyone has gone to hide in their own corners.”

 

The cleric maintained that no sovereign nation would tolerate external interference aimed at dividing its population along religious or social lines.

 

“Which country would accept something brought in just to divide its people?” he asked. “No country would agree to that. It would insist that either everyone is treated equally or it rejects such interference entirely.”

 

He accused Nigeria’s political and religious elite of abandoning meaningful engagement, saying citizens were left with empty rhetoric instead of real solutions, while suffering, repression and denial of rights continued to worsen.

 

“You brought hardship upon us, you broke us. You oppressed us and denied us our rights,” Gumi said, decrying what he described as the labeling of parts of the country along religious identities.

 

He warned that the prevailing atmosphere of fear, silence and division was steadily pulling Nigeria downward, stressing that continued inaction by leaders and clerics would only deepen the nation’s challenges.

 

“This is the situation we are facing,” he said. “And it is dragging the country down.”