… CALLS FOR DIALOGUE
Worried by the spread of the farmers/ herders’ crisis and the unrest in some states of the southwest geopolitical zone, the high command of the Peace Corps of Nigeria has launched a special visitation campaign to stakeholders.
The corps special visitation campaign focuses on how to use dialogue to stop crisis from degenerating to a full blown violence across the country.
Deputy National Commandant of the Corps in charge of General Duties and Intelligence, Patriot Micheal Oyemike, and the State Commandant, Olufemi Akinyemi, took the campaign to the Palace of the Sarki Hausa in Egbaland and the Vice Chairman of the Hausa/Fulani community in Ogun State.
Speaking on the significance of the visit, the Deputy National Commandant noted that as peacemen, officers of the Corps are always at the forefront of finding peace and identifying potential threats to national peace and security.
He added that Peace Corps officers have been trained to be solution providers and they are achieving positive results through dialogue, mediation and alternative dispute resolution.
Oyemike said, “Our mission here is, peace corps our constituency is within the youth and when there is crisis the people who suffer it the most are the youth, still it is still the youth that being used for a violent act, now we need to preach the importance of dialogue, yes you can’t avoid crisis in to do, if we make attempt at dialogue first we will see that some of the resources we use for after war can be put for good use, what we are preaching now is the place for peaceful dialogue, so that we can use dialogue to achieve that which violence cannot achieve”.
“Yes violence is there but violence has repercussions that will take us years to amend but with dialogue, we can achieve a peaceful environment, get a peaceful environment where our children can sleep without being scared of anything”.
“The essence of seeing them is that they are the heads of both the Hausa and Fulani constituency in Ogun State, we will need to talk to them first, so that they can talk to their people for peaceful co-existence because we can’t do without them, are we going to travel from year to Kaduna to go and buy food stuffs. We need to co-exist, that is why we are here”.
On his part, the Commandant of the Corps in Ogun State, Patriot Olufemi Akinyemi, assured the Hausa/Fulani Community of better relationship, noting that the Corps is in touch with other major stakeholders in the Southwest and beyond, adding that the Corps in Ogun State is working seriously to complement the good gesture of the state government.
He also urged the Hausa/Fulani community to continue to educate their people about the presence of the second wave of Covid-19 in Nigeria.
The meeting was attended by representatives of Fulani Community, Miyetti-Allah Cattle Breeders Association, Market heads and chiefs as well as other notable leaders in the Hausa community in Ogun State.
In his response, the Sarki Hausa of Egbaland, Alhaji Ibraheem Hassan Hassan, commended the leadership of the Peace Corps of Nigeria for the move and for what he called ‘useful suggestions’.
‘We don’t want a situation that this crisis will escalate in this country, as we are here we will discuss reasonable issues’
‘My advice is that we want to be united, we want people to be united in this country, we are one, we don’t want to separate in this country, I call all the Fulani community, Hausa community and the Yoruba community to sit down for a peace meeting in our communities,” he stated.
High point of the event was the donation and presentation of packs of nose masks and hand sanitizers to the Hausa/Fulani community in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19 among them.