BY NONYELUM EKWENUGO
Kaduna
The Kaduna State Peace Commission has said that the commission is doing all it could to mitigate violent conflict in the State through early reporting.
The permanent Commissioner, Kaduna State Peace commission, Khadija Hawaja on Wednesday, made this known at the one day engagement program with civil society groups and media on strategic framework, in Kaduna with the theme ‘Strenghtening Local and State Level Peace Architecture for Peace and Conflict Prevention’.
“Wee realized that to be able to prevent the conflict you must be ahead of whatever that will happen. We must therefore have a working and functional Early Warning, Early Response, (EWER) mechanism in place in all the LGAs of the State as well as districts and local communities so that the respondents can be able to dictate anything that may likely cause breach of peace in the state rather than waiting for conflicts to happen and we begin to look for solution”.
She explained that the engagement was for the media and CSOs to get their own view on what the 2023-2027 strategic plan of the commission should look like, including the vision, goals and as well as the strategies that they can deploy in achieving the set goals.
“It’s the understanding of the commission that the media is essentially very relevant to whether we will have peace in the State, country or not and so, that understanding is what necessitated the bringing together of the traditional and also the socal media to see to it that we are in the same page in ensuring that our reportage is conflict sensitive such that we do not escalate the already heated polity or the community tension that we have on ground.”
Speaking with newsmen shortly after the event, the program Manager, Ladies Empowerment Goals and Support Initiative (LEGASI) Mr. Timothy Lawrence, said peace remains the universal cravings of every mankind and therefore the Kaduna State Peace Commission must do everything possible to implement the set goals and it’s objectives rather than stopping at just paper works.
Lawrence while advising religious leaders and relevant stakeholders on peace building processes, urged them to be true ambassadors of peace in their respective communities and the nation at large.
He lamented over the use of hateful and divisive sermon by some clerics both in past and present.
He advised clerics to desist from making utterances capable of turning the State and the nation into chaos, even as he noted that religious leaders are integral parts of the human society because of the important roles that they play, and as such they must be deliberate in ensuring that lasting peace thrives in their localities by making sure that their followers see them as good examples of peace lovers through their sermons.
