What Islamic Council said about killings in Kaduna, other states

The Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), under the leadership of its President-General and Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa‘ad Abubakar, has expressed sadness over the current crisis in Kaduna State.

A statement issued on Wednesday by the Deputy Secretary-general of the Council, Prof. Salisu Shehu, in Abuja said the perennial conflicts was eroding people’s confidence in the government.

Shehu said whatever might have caused the latest crisis and whatever investigations were to follow must not be an immediate matter of concern for the authorities now, but tackling the sources of the conflicts.

The statement reads: “We call on the Kaduna State Government as well as the Federal Government to handle the volatile issue with care to prevent it from getting aggravated. If Nigerians need peaceful coexistence as citizens, this is the time.”

“We will not be tired of telling government to bring all those that have hands in these crises to book because, as it were, failure to do just this has been the most significant factor in making these unfortunate incidents to be recurrent decimals in the country,” Shehu said.

According to him, “such crisis which is becoming too frequent, is capable of snowballing into a national calamity adding that the most disturbing aspect of the Kaduna crisis so far is the religious undertone to which the press is, as usual, linking it.

“While we may not be in a position to tell government the right measures to take in averting these kinds of tragic incidents, we have the right to express our opinion to the effect that the persistence of these incidents is continuously eroding people’s confidence in government.

“Similarly it smacks of lack of cooperation, synergy and coordination among the various security agencies and organizations, needless to talk about near complete absence of intelligence gathering.

“These are challenges that the Federal Government will have to address urgently not only to ensure the entrenchment of enduring peace, but also to sustain people’s confidence and goodwill.”