Southern Kaduna: Sultan Accuses Politicians, Religious Leaders Of Fueling Killings

The Sultan made the call in a statement issued by JNI Secretary General, Dr. Khalid Abubakar Aliyu on Wednesday night.

According to him, the “ugly developments of accusations and counter-accusations from religious leaders,” can lead to un-ending conflict.

He, therefore called for calm, restraint, and urged the people to eschew bitterness and discard all forms of hate speeches.

He said, “The National Headquarters of Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) painstakingly notes with concern, the unfortunate sectarian violence which bedevilled Southern Kaduna for quite sometime now and it has monitored events relating to the unfortunate serial killings, as they unfolded.

“More worrisome was the ineptitude and pettiness from some religious leaders, and individuals with sinister motives and political undertones alongside intent to foment trouble, and imbalance reportage. While at some quarters, unguarded utterances full of exaggerations, beating the drums of war were the order of the day.

“Planting the seed of discord, acrimony, hate speech and unguarded statements, such as; “religious cleansing’’,” systematic genocide through the instrumentality of Islamic fundamentalists…”, “therefore, all Christians are to dress in mourning attire of black clothes or dresses… on January 8, 2017”, “Christians should defend themselves”, and exaggeration of figures of casualties horrendously, etc, are obviously factors that exasperated the crisis.

“Thank God, security agencies considered the alleged given figures as mere exaggerations.

“Additionally, a formidable Christian group rejected the call of dressing in mourning attire of black clothes.

“However, JNI is really worried with these aforementioned and ugly developments of accusations and counter accusations from religious leaders, which could lead to an un-ending conflict. Nonetheless, as always, we reiterate that human life is sacred and should be treated so.”