• El-Rufai warns against reprisal
From Sola Ojo, Kaduna
PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has expressed sadness over the fresh killings brewed in Kajuru Local Government of Kaduna State, where scores died, and pleaded with affected groups to shelt their swords and stop reprisal attacks.
The president spoke through Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, one of the governors who just returned from London, where they visited the ailing president. He said the president was disturbed over the recent clash between Fulani and Hadara people of the area.
The governor, however, assured that perpetrators of the attacks, who, according to him, have already been identified by the security, would be made to face the full wrath of the law.
Police last week confirmed 32 persons killed in the reprisal and counter-reprisal attacks that followed assault on a young herder and subsequent killing of his father by some youths.
Meanwhile, Governor El-Rufai, who visited Kajuru community yesterday, in company of the Minister of Interior, Lieutenant General Abdulrahman Dambazzau (rtd), told the warring parties to forgive themselves and allow the government take charge of their security.
“On Sunday, I was with President Muhammadu Buhari in London, where we went to visit him. The president told me that he was sad when he read in the news that there were clashes in Kajuru. So, the president has asked me to commiserate with you over the lives lost and plead with you to forgive one another. But, I can assure you that those behind the incidents will be brought to book. The Police Commissioner has told me that they have identified the perpetrators and we will ensure they are adequately punished,” he said.
“God in his wisdom created people with differences in ethnicity, religion and creeds, and if people cannot learn to love themselves across the differences, they should, at least, not kill one another,” added the governor.
Similarly, the minister of Interior, Dambazzau, said most of the crises witnessed in Kaduna State and other parts of Nigeria “were over worldly resources, which everyone will die and leave behind, hence, the need to be accommodative and live together in peace.”
Representatives of the Fulani and Hadara communities who earlier addressed the gathering tasked the government to beef up security in the area and punish perpetrators of the previous attacks to serve as deterrent to others and discourage people from taking laws into their own hands.