President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday condemned the endless killings and reprisals in Kaduna State, advising the perpetrators to sheathe their swords.
The President, who said he was deeply troubled by the killings, noted that violence could only leave sadness on its trail for the attackers on both sides of the divide.
“I am deeply troubled by the fact that the sanctity of life is now treated with such reckless disregard that people derive joy in shedding the blood of others or perceived enemies,” Buhari was quoted as saying in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr Garba Shehu.
Buhari added that “inhumanity has replaced compassion in the hearts and minds of the perpetrators of these atrocities.”
The President observed that “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 called for patience and dialogue on both sides, saying, “Violence cannot be the solution to these persistent conflicts as long as people resort to deliberate provocation, revenge, and counter-revenge.”
Buhari further stated that the government was in search of a solution, adding, “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.”
He also said a “lack of cooperation by those involved might frustrate the government’s efforts towards finding a lasting solution, especially if those efforts are politicised.”
Sounding frustrated, the President noted, “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 also expressed his regrets, “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 went further to say that hatred, bigotry, and prejudice greatly fuelled the killings as “deadly poisons that have infected the human psyche on such scale that people now don’t have any moral inhibitions about taking life.”
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