Sheikh Gumi Took My Moroccan Wife For 11 Months After We Went For Counselling — Man Alleges

Nasiru Musa Idris, the husband of a Moroccan woman at the centre of a dispute involving Islamic cleric Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, has accused the cleric of keeping his wife away from him for about 11 months.

Idris made the allegation in an interview with RFI Hausa, claiming he took his wife to Gumi for counselling after the cleric asked to speak with her.

According to him, he trusted Gumi as a religious scholar and had no reason to suspect anything when he took his young Moroccan wife to meet the cleric.

Idris alleged that his wife stopped answering his calls after the meeting and that subsequent attempts to have security agencies investigate the matter were unsuccessful.

“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,” he alleged.

Gumi, however, has denied the allegation, saying the woman had already left Nigeria and was currently in Morocco with her parents.

Speaking to Daily Trust, the cleric declined to go into details, citing ongoing court proceedings. He, however, said he would 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 State while he was with members of his family. He later introduced the cleric to his Moroccan wife.

He maintained that his wife had no previous connections in Nigeria before their marriage, saying he travelled to Morocco to seek her hand in marriage with the consent of her parents and the relevant authorities.

The disagreement, according to Idris, later centred on the documentation of the marriage. He alleged that Gumi insisted that he obtain another marriage certificate from a Sharia Court despite having documents issued in both 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 had submitted documents relating to the marriage, including paperwork from the Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Nigerian embassy in Morocco, as well as other supporting documents and a police character report.

Idris further alleged that Gumi later sought the separation of the marriage and interfered with attempts 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 had travelled to Nigeria and taken her daughter back to Morocco.

He said he personally handled the documentation that enabled his wife to travel to Nigeria and took her to Gumi only because the cleric had asked to counsel her because of her young age.

“Because I trusted him, I took her there. From then on, whenever I called, she did not answer the phone,” he alleged.

Meanwhile, 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 had kept Idris’ wife at his residence.

Ayuba said the Moroccan woman had approached Gumi herself seeking help over a personal matter.

“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,” he said.

He added that Gumi subsequently took the matter to court.

Ayuba also accused Idris of attempting to damage the cleric’s reputation through social media.

“He only wants to tarnish Malam’s image on the social media,” he alleged.

He said Gumi’s supporters had information about the private affairs involved in the dispute but would not disclose them unless necessary.

“We will not expose anyone’s secrets, but if it becomes necessary to expose the secrets, we will do so because we have everything recorded,” Ayuba said.