Southern Kaduna Agitates For Own State As Solution To Crisis

The Federal government should give us state in order to stop the ongoing genocide in our region’, Southern Kaduna indigenes across the globe have stated during a video conference organised by Governance Index and anchored in the United Kingdom.

Between January and June 2020, Amnesty International said at least 366 people were killed in multiple attacks by the Armed men allegedly to be Fulani militia in southern Kaduna.

The Indigenes of Southern Kaduna in the video conference which lasted for about two hours, thirty minutes accused the Governor of Kaduna state, Nasir El-rufai of taking sides with the Fulani militia who are killing their people.

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In his presentation, Fidelis Tukurah said the creation of the state is the lasting solution to the ongoing genocide in the Southern Kaduna

“If we, the people of southern Kaduna will kill ourselves afterwards, let us have own state,” Tukurah stated.

Also supporting Tukurah, Mrs. Gloria Sani Yakusak said, “if the government can wake up to their responsibility looking beyond tribe and other ethnic cases, the government should be able to protect every creation, but if the government will be one-sided they should give people of Southern Kaduna their own state.”

“I just want to concur with the suggestion”, she stated.

“I think the creation of the state is very necessary to solve the Southern Kaduna crisis. There is a conspiracy going on and even across other parts of Nigeria states”, Philip Moses who is another Speaker at the Conference said.

“There is a grand scheme to change the demography of Nigeria completely in order to have a full grip of power perpetually, creation of the state is very important.”

John Paul Kajit, PhD, said, “state creation, it may work for extent, but it will bring limited succour.”

There is an ongoing review of the 1999 Constitution which is a platform for the creation of states, creation of states is in the agenda of the Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Review of Constitution.

Further investigation by our correspondent showed that no civilian government has created a state in Nigeria since 1960.

Another solution proffered to bring an end to the killings in Southern Kaduna is for the people of the region to be United, the Southern Kaduna stakeholders submitted.

Paul Yusuf said, “We the Southern Kaduna people need to come together to have a common narrative.

Every indigene will key into that narrative and we should decide what conversation we should have among ourselves.

If for instance, El-rufai refuses to engage with SOKAPU, let all Southern Kaduna people come together and find out why the governor will not engage with SOKAPU, what is the problem, what do we have to do for him to engage with SOKAPU.

“We have different nationalities, as one, under one Umbrella, it will simplify the job of person that is ruling Southern Kaduna at a time and let us present one conversation at a time because the way we have been dealing with the issue is not working.

“This is where we are supposed to work. We have sent people to the United Nations to speak our case, I have been to the House of Common to speak about the issue of southern Kaduna and you can see some papers that have been released on that issue”

“If they come to Southern Kaduna, they will come and find that we are not coherent, I will probably be embarrassed when they come back and say, ‘I thought you were organised as a group of people’; our narrative has to be the same, and choose what conversation we are having, we can make all the noise in the world, we can even take El-rufai to Hague, but we got to have a conversation.”

Also, talking about a united southern Kaduna, Bitrus Gwamna said, “I belong to Southern Kaduna in Diaspora, USA branch, we have sent money to the people in the IDP camp on several occasions to cater for them. They lack the materials needed for the solution of the Southern Kaduna crisis.

“The chiefdom should speak among themselves so that they can present a united front, they don’t need a constitution to speak to each other so that they can have a common front.

“They are about 30 different ethnic groups in Southern Kaduna, and so Hausa now became the lingua Franca for all these groups, so there is no any reason for us not to dialogue with each other.

“We need media houses to cover the activities of people of Southern Kaduna, we need a radio station in the place where the people of the place can articulate their views.

“When we cooperate with each other it will be difficult for outsiders to infiltrate that unit and break us. Our people need to dialogue with each other.

“We need Military presence in the area, they could incorporate the formation of community policing.”

in his own submission, Dr. Philip Hayap blamed the British colonial master for the crisis in the Southern Kaduna for foisting their own organization on the people of Southern Kaduna which was resisted.

“From 1903 till date there has been uneven relationship between the people of Zazzau and Southern Kaduna, among the other Hausa people, there is this feeling that they are superior.

“There was no good relationship with Hausa a southern Kaduna since then. When they gained power over our people they enslaved our people for 100 years”, Dr. Hayap said.

It was gathered that Frederick Lugard proclaimed the protectorate of Northern Nigeria at Ida in Kogi on January 1, 1897.