El-Rufai: Inaction of past govts worsened Kaduna killings

Nasir El-Rufai, governor of Kaduna state, says the refusal of past governments to implement recommendations on security encouraged perpetrators of nefarious act to continue.

El-Rufai, who vowed to check the ugly trend, gave a two-week ultimatum to the police and traditional rulers to find those behind the killings in the southern part of the state.

According to Samuel Aruwan, his spokesman, El-Rufai gave the order after holding a meeting with the head of Nigerian Police, Kafanchan area command, and chairmen of local government areas affected by the killings.

Aruwan said the meeting was a “frank discussion” between aggrieved ethnic groups in the bid to find solutions to the killings reoccurring in the affected communities.

He quoted the governor as saying those carrying out the killings were doing so under the guise of religion.

“We have studied reports of all committees and commissions of inquiries set up from 1980 to the time we came into power,” the statement quoted El-Rufai as saying.

“What we discovered is that negligence of previous governments to implement recommendations encouraged the spate of insecurity to continue unchecked in the state.

“Those responsible for the crisis always use religious or ethnic differences to fan the embers of these crises. There is no way we will brand some people in Nigeria as settlers who don’t have the rights to live in any part of the country.

“We are all Nigerians and God knows why he made all of us to be Nigerians. He is the one who created us to belong to different faith or religions.

“For me, the things that have brought these crises in Kaduna state is that those doing it hide under the guise of religion and ethnicity to cause these conflicts. But we know that illiteracy and poverty are the root cause of the insecurity we have been experiencing.

“Anyone that feels he has been grieved because his relations were killed or has lost anything should come out and complain and we will compensate him if that is what it will take. But no one should resort to killing because of anything.”