• Buhari condemns internecine violence, calls for mediation
No fewer than 10 bodies have been recovered and about 30 houses confirmed burnt in another attack by unknown gunmen on Nandu Gbok community in Sanga Government Area of Kaduna State yesterday.
But, Kaduna State Government while confirming the attack said nine citizens were killed by criminal elements that attacked the village in the early hours of yesterday.
Reacting to the development yesterday, President Muhammadu Buhari condemned the killings and urged the actors in 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.
He said, “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.”
The president, in a statement by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, noted that “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”, he further noted sadly.
According to Buhari, “Violence cannot be the solution to these persistent conflicts as long as people resort to deliberate provocations, revenge and counter revenge.”
He said 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.”
According to the President, “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.”
He regretted 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.”
He described hate, bigotry and prejudice as “deadly poisons that have infected the human psyche on such scale that people now don’t have any moral inhibitions about taking life.”
The president also 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.
Also a statement signed by Governor Nasir El-Rufai’s media aide, Samuel Aruwan, the governor condemned the killings.
He said “The Kaduna State Government has been briefed by the security agencies on the killing of nine persons by criminal elements that attacked Nandu village in Sanga LGA in the early hours of today.”
