Kaduna: Sani pleads with religious leaders to restore Peace.  

Kaduna: Sani pleads with religious leaders to restore Peace.  

The Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani has pleaded with the religious leaders in the state  to ensure peaceful coexistence among various people irrespective of ethno-religious differences.

 Governor Sani Speaking at an interactive meeting with religious leaders in the state at Sir Kashim Ibrahim Government House on Sunday, challenged them to put an end to the conflicts of bloodletting that has characterized the State for decades. 

Kaduna State was particularly engulfed by bloodshed between the two major religions during the Shari’a crisis of the year 2000 when many lives and property were lost and destroyed. 

Since then the living pattern in the state has changed to Muslims and Christians dominating the northern and southern parts of the city respectively. 

“For decades, our dear state (Kaduna) has been in the news for the wrong reasons”. 

According to the governor, “Our diversity, which should be our pride and strength, has become the source of hate, acrimony, and sustained bloodletting in some communities.

“Conflict entrepreneurs have been having a field day manipulating religion for their selfish ends. The rest of us appear helpless in the face of this assault on our state. 

“Must we continue to keep silent for fear of being misunderstood? Must we continue to sacrifice the peace and progress of our dear state on the altar of political expediency? Far be it. 

“The Founding Fathers of Nigeria were people of high moral stature. In our current situation, however, what we see is power without moral capital. We damage our people and communities in pursuit of power. 

“We forget that power is temporary and that one day we shall face our creator and give an account of our actions. I am conscious of this, hence my resolve to break from the past. 

“Despite the mounting challenges and collapsed livelihoods in some of our communities, we must pull ourselves together and devise innovative homegrown strategies to stem the current and emerging patterns of conflict and build resistance and resilience against banditry, insurgency, terrorism, kidnapping, and other forms of criminality.” 

The governor encouraged the religious leaders to be at the forefront of rebuilding trust in communities and urged them to step up interfaith dialogue and break down the walls of suspicion among the people. 

“We are one person. We serve one God. We face identical challenges. We are pursuing the same goal using different approaches. We must not allow anti-development elements to deepen divisions in our state”. He stated. 

To this end, he summoned them to relate with other stakeholders to set up Peace Committees in various communities. 

He added that Community Peace Committees will serve as grassroots structures for promoting peacemaking, peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and peace enforcement. 

“This will result in conflict transformation and development in our communities. Without peace, there cannot be development”. Governor Sani added 

Earlier, the overseer of the state Ministry of Internal Security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan, told the religious leaders that the essence of bringing them together is to build a harmonious relationship among the followers of the two faiths. 

Aruwan noted that the menace of banditry, kidnapping, rustling farmers and herders clashing, among others, continues to be a threat to our developmental pursuits. 

He said that it was based on this premise that the Governor, in his wisdom, decided to call for the meeting to see how peace would return to the state. 

Thereafter, the meeting went into a closed-door session with the religious leaders.