Senator for Kaduna Central in the 8th Senate, Shehu Sani says President Muhammadu Buhari won’t be able to find a solution to the Southern Kaduna killings without consulting stakeholders in the area.
The sociopolitical commentator noted that the president was only consulting the State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai without reaching out to leaders of Southern Kaduna.
Sani further urged the president to set up a presidential committee made up of eminent personalities to look into the immediate and remote causes of the killings so as to find a lasting solution.
He said, “I think the first thing the President needs to do is to give audience to people of Southern Kaduna. Invite their elders, community leaders and religious leaders, political leaders, their youths and women should be selected from all the local governments to sit down with Mr. President to find out solution to the problem in the area.
“Another thing that the President needs to do about Southern Kaduna is to set up a Presidential committee of not more than seven members, which will include people like Col. Dangiwa Umar, Lawal Jafaru Isa, Mohammed Makarfi, Martin Agwai who have been able to achieve a lot in terms of restoring peace in Southern Kaduna. A Presidential committee comprising these people will be able to give the President a realistic, objective and fair practical steps in solving the problem.
“One of the reasons why the problem in Southern Kaduna cannot be solved is that the President only listens to the Governor and the Governor and people of Southern Kaduna are apart, he can’t solve that problem.
“The names that I have mentioned, I believe have fair knowledge of what is happening in Southern Kaduna and we should also not confuse the problem in the area.”
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Sani explained that the killings were being perpetrated by marauding bandits moving from village to village.
He said that the belief that the killings are reprisals or have ethno-religious dimensions were untrue.
“The killing in Southern Kaduna is carried out by bandits who go about raiding villages, raping women, killing children and displacing people; this is different from the problem of the last four decades of religious crises, this is a different thing.
“What people are trying to do now is to say the killing is reprisal, or revenge, but for me, it is not a revenge because no Muslim is killing Christians and no Christian has killed Muslims for now; it is terrorists that are targeting the people of Southern Kaduna and killing them, you shouldn’t bring what has happened in the last three to four decades and try to justify the pure terrorist activities that is happening in that part of the country,” he said.