In a move to restore lasting peace, the Southern Kaduna Joint Peace Committee (SKJPC) over the weekend organised a sensitisation meeting for village heads and other stakeholders in the area.
The meeting was held in collaboration with the Nigeria Early Recovery Initiative (NERI), a unit of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which has been working to strengthen grassroots security in Southern Kaduna since 2020.
The village heads, in their separate submissions at the meeting, called for forgiveness and enthronement of justice in resolving the persistent conflicts bedevilling the area.
Malam Danladi Maigari, village head of Fori, Gong chiefdom of Jama’a local government area said lack of equity and justice was at the heart of the incessant herders-farmers conflict in the zone.
“There can only be peace and unity when there is fairness and inclusiveness.
“But a situation where some people are treated as sons of the land and others are not, is not the best,” he said.
According to him, the search for peace could not be a one day talk shop but a constant and sustained effort.
On his part, village head of Bondong, Moroa chiefdom of Kaura local government area, Mr. Jonathan Mamman, said the only way the persistent conflict could be resolved was for warring parties to genuinely forgive one another and embrace dialogue.
Mamman stated that the warring parties may find it difficult to forgive if they continue to focus on the pains and losses incurred during past clashes.
Earlier, the co-chairman of SKJPC, Dr Ahmed Yandeh, said the meeting was convened to identify conflict triggers and chart a way forward as herders begin their southward seasonal movement.
Yandeh noted that the village heads are better placed to proffer solutions to the lingering problem as they were the closest to the people at the grassroots.
Other village heads who spoke solicited for greater understanding and cooperation from security agencies in performing their role as grassroots mediators.
Also speaking, Mrs Omokide Chikodi, Programme Manager of NERI, said engaging community leaders will surely minimise conflicts which occur seasonally due to pastoralist migration.
Chikodi enjoined the community leaders to embrace interest based negotiations in resolving herders-farmers conflicts that may arise during the migration period.
“We have to understand that climate change issues regularly precipitate migration of pastoralists.
“And so if these community leaders are not brought together to talk, we foresee a situation where there will be huge destruction of farmlands,” she said.
Blueprint reports that SKJPC was constituted at the end of the Southern Kaduna Peace Summit in 2020, with a mandate to ensure sustainable peace in all communities.