Warring parties in Southern Kaduna on Thursday agreed to an immediate cessation of attacks, kidnappings and cattle rustling following a three-day peace summit.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the peace summit, which held in Kafanchan, was convened by the Nigeria Christian Pilgrims Commission in collaboration with friends of Southern Kaduna.
The warring parties said this in a communique read and signed by the chairman of the communiqué committee, Prof. Sunday Agang and his co-chairman, Prof. Abdullahi Ashafa.
The stakeholders called for collaborative economic activities for the people of Southern Kaduna as a way of promoting harmonious and peaceful co-existence.
According to them, inciting statements and utterances that make people feel alienated should be avoided by all.
While noting that women and youth should be carried along in all formal peace processes, they added that there should be deliberate efforts to ‘recognise and celebrate our differences’.
Other resolutions included, stopping minors from grazing alone, farming on grazing routes and deliberate destruction of farm crops among others.
“The summit recommends that reprisals have been identified as one of the causes of the killings in Southern Kaduna that appears like a justification of the attacks.
“The summit calls on all leaders at local, state and national levels to avoid all that border on appearance of taking sides and not being impartial judges.
“Issues perceived to be the causes of the festering violence will be communicated in separate letters to the President and the Governor of the state,” it added.
In his remarks earlier, Rev. Yakubu Pam, the Executive-Secretary of NCPC, solicited the continuous synergy and collaboration of all relevant stakeholders.
According to him, the state government will do well to make good its promise to implement all agreements reached at the summit.
He called on the state and federal governments to reach out to the victims of the crisis with interventions to enable them rebuild their lives.
The NCPC boss appealed to the state government to always involve the warring parties in decision making processes that affected them.
He appreciated the participants and stakeholders for availing themselves, urging them to quickly swing into action to ensure the purpose of the summit was achieved.
Also speaking, Priscilla Ankut, the Executive-Vice Chairperson of the Kaduna State Peace Commission, said that the state government remained steadfast in stemming violence in the state.
Ankut pointed out that putting humanity above religious and ethnic considerations would bring about quick resolution of the crisis in Southern Kaduna.
She commended the organisers of the summit for the initiative, noting that no amount of effort was too small or too much in the quest for peace.
NAN reports that the summit, which had the theme: “De-escalating Violence in Southern Kaduna” was attended by religious, traditional and community leaders among others.
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