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Buhari calls for peace after Kaduna killings

Published

7 years ago

March 18, 2019

Laments inhumanity has replaced compassion

President Muhammadu Buhari has called on all stakeholders involved the communal and persistent violence in Kaduna State to come to terms with the fact that mutual violence has no winners but losers on both sides of the conflict. The president condemned the endless carnage in Kaduna State on Saturday.

President Buhari declared: “I am deeply troubled by the fact that sanctity of life is now treated with such reckless disregard that people derive joy in shedding the blood of others or perceived enemies.

“Inhumanity has replaced compassion in the hearts and minds of the perpetrators of these atrocities.

“No responsible leader would go to bed happy to see his citizens savagely killing one another on account of ethnic and religious bigotry.”

The President stated that “Violence cannot be the solution to these persistent conflicts as long as people resort to deliberate provocations, revenge and counter revenge.”

He was of the view that, “While the government remains committed to protecting its citizens, the communities involved must also put their shoulder to the wheel in order to find a lasting solution.”

The President said that “lack of cooperation by those involved might frustrate government’s efforts towards finding a lasting solution, especially, if those efforts are politicised.”

He maintained that, “If the people resist government’s efforts to hold the perpetrators and their sponsors accountable, it would be very difficult to bring the violence to a permanent end.”

President Buhari also stated that “everything is politicised in Nigeria, including the efforts to bring offenders to justice, because their people will rise up in arms to resist their arrests and prosecution.”

The President observed that hate, bigotry and prejudice constitute “deadly poisons that have infected the human psyche on such scale that people now don’t have any moral inhibitions about taking life.”

President Buhari appealed to the warring communities to stop inhibiting the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA’s efforts to deliver food, medicines and temporary shelter to the victims of the violence who are in urgent need of assistance.