The Muslim Youth Foundation of Southern Kaduna (MYFOSKA), a youth wing of Southern Kaduna Muslim Ummah Development Association (SOKAMUDA), has asked government to device effective mechanisms for arresting the proliferation of dangerous arms and light weapons among the people.
The group explained that stoppage of proliferation of arms would put an end to banditry and other forms of criminal tendencies that trigger insecurity.
The group gave the advice during a briefing at the Secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Journalists in Kaduna on Monday.
Speaking on behalf of the group, Kabiru Muhammed, national chairman of MYFOSKA, claimed that the Muslim community in Southern Kaduna is always at the receiving end of the killings in the region.
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He said that in most of the reoccurring incidences of violence in the communities, instead of diagnosing the root causes with the aim to bring an end to the ugly situation, some people end up making political and economic capital out of it.
“While this has remained the reoccurring decimal, the massive destructions and loss of means of livelihood have remained as some of the negative stories being recounted,” he said.
“In spite of establishing Commissions of Inquiry whose report and recommendations were submitted to governments, we note with sadness that the perpetrators and their sponsors/supporters were being left to go scot-free without sanctions according to the laws of the land to serve as deterrent.
“This act of commission or omission by government’s failure to prosecute the perpetrators of these heinous crimes against humanity, even after being identified by the various Commissions of Inquiry, further worsens the situation by emboldening the perpetrators and their sponsors to see nothing incriminating in their criminality.
“For this reason, the massacre of innocent human beings at the slightest opportunity and with different tactics and strategies has become past time adventure in a manner as if governments do not exist.
“Pursuance to its quest for sustainable peace in the Southern Kaduna area, and having remained too vulnerable to the uncountable forms of aggression over our Ummah, MYFOSKA found it necessary to organisze and strategise its efforts to enhance peaceful co-existence in Southern Kaduna for the realisation of enduring peace, unity and stability in the zone,” he said.
The group further said the recurrent crisis bedeviling the area was caused largely by intolerance associated with political, tribal, religious and ethnic identity interests who are supported by some selfish religious leaders fuelling and sponsoring intolerance among ethnic activists, and instigating the otherwise tolerant traditional institutions.
It called on the media and NGOs to always verify their facts from all contending sides to a conflict and ensure balanced reportage on sensitive issues to avoid the usual one-sided and skewed narrative capable of worsening the volatile situation.
