ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
A Kaduna-based man, Nasiru Musa Idris, has accused Islamic cleric Sheikh Ahmad Gumi of allegedly keeping his Moroccan wife away from him for about 11 months after he took her to the cleric for counselling.
Idris made the allegation in an interview with RFI Hausa, claiming he took his wife to Gumi after the cleric requested to counsel her because she was young.
According to him, his wife stopped responding to his calls after the meeting, while attempts to have security agencies investigate the matter were allegedly frustrated.
“For 11 months now, my wife has been in his hands through injustice and ill-treatment. He has no relationship with her; she had never known him. The only place they knew each other was through me,” Idris alleged.
Gumi, however, has denied the allegation, insisting that the Moroccan woman had already left Nigeria and was in Morocco with her parents.
The cleric, who declined to provide further details because the matter is before a court, also threatened to sue Idris for defamation.
“But I will take him to court for defamation against me. As for the issue of the girl, she has already left Nigeria and she is in Morocco happily with her parents,” Gumi said.
Idris said he first met Gumi at a pharmacy on Isa Kaita Road in Kaduna while he was with members of his family and later introduced his Moroccan wife to the cleric.
He said his wife had no prior connection with anyone in Nigeria before he travelled to Morocco to marry her, adding that the marriage was conducted with the approval of her parents and relevant authorities.
“The Moroccan girl had never known anyone in Nigeria and nobody knew her except through me. I went to seek her hand in marriage in her country, and we had an engagement with the approval of the embassy and the approval of her parents,” he said.
The dispute, according to Idris, escalated after Gumi allegedly asked him to obtain another marriage certificate from a Sharia Court despite the couple already having marriage documents issued in Morocco and Nigeria.
“I told him that I did not agree with the marriage certificate he told me to obtain. Later, he went to the Sharia Court in Malali and asked them to issue one to him,” Idris alleged.
He said he submitted several documents supporting the marriage, including papers from Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Nigerian embassy in Morocco, alongside other documents and a police character report.
Idris further alleged that Gumi later sought the dissolution of the marriage and interfered with efforts by security agencies to investigate the matter.
He urged the cleric to honour a police invitation and submit himself to questioning.
“My complaint is that he should come forward and answer the invitation of the police so that an investigation can be conducted. If he is right, there is nothing stopping him from going to the authorities to clear his name,” he said.
Idris also rejected claims that his wife’s mother travelled to Nigeria and took her daughter back to Morocco.
He maintained that he personally processed the documents that enabled his wife to travel to Nigeria, insisting that he only took her to Gumi because he trusted the cleric and believed he was seeking to help the young woman.
“Because I trusted him, I took her there. From then on, whenever I called, she did not answer the phone,” he alleged.
Meanwhile, Malam Nasiru Ayuba, popularly known as Dan Agaji, chairman of the Volunteers of Sultan Bello Mosque, Kaduna, and Gumi’s personal assistant on special assignment, denied that the cleric kept Idris’ wife in his house.
“The allegation that Malam kept his wife in his house is not true. It was the woman herself who went to Malam to ask him for help,” Ayuba said.
He claimed that the Moroccan woman approached Gumi over a personal matter and sought his intervention, after which the cleric took the matter to court.
“She brought the matter herself because she knew what she was going through. Th
Warning: Undefined variable $user_ID in /home/naijuinz/public_html/wp-content/themes/zox-news/comments.php on line 49
You must be logged in to post a comment Login