6th February, 2021
Adejoke Adeleye/Abeokuta
The Seriki Hausa of Egbaland in Ogun State, Alhaji Ibraheem Hassan Hassan, has advised all ethnic groups in Nigeria to continue to work for the unity of the country, warning that the ongoing farmers/herders crisis must not be allowed to escalate.
The Seriki spoke when he received Officers of Peace Corps of Nigeria who were on a peace advocacy campaign following recent escalation of the farmers/ herders crisis and the unrest in some states of the Southwest zone in his palace on Friday.
The meeting was attended by representatives of Fulani Community, Miyetti-Allah cattle breeders Association, market heads, chiefs and other notable leaders in the Hausa Community in Ogun State.
While speaking with the team led by the Deputy National Commandant of the Corps in charge of General Duties and Intelligence, Patriot Micheal Oyemike and the State Commandant, Olufemi Akinyemi, Hassan Hassan who is also the Vice Chairman of the Hausa/Fulani Community in Ogun said the current herdsmen/farmers crisis in Nigeria should not be allowed to escalate any further.
“We don’t want a situation that this crisis will escalate in this country. 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, Hausa and the Yoruba to sit down for a peace meeting in our communities,” he said.
Speaking earlier about the significance of the visit, the Deputy National Commandant noted that 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 “Peace Corps, our constituency is the youth and when there is crisis, the people who suffer the most are the youths. But now we need to preach the importance of dialogue. If we make attempt at dialogue first we will see that some of the resources we use for war can be put for good use. What we are preaching now is peaceful dialogue, so that we can use dialogue to achieve that which violence cannot achieve”.
“With dialogue, we can achieve a peaceful environment where our children can sleep without being scared of anything”.
“The essence of coming here to see them is that they are the heads of both the Hausa and Fulani constituency in Ogun State. We need to talk to them first, so that they can talk to their people for peaceful co-existence.”.
On his part, the Commandant of the Corps in Ogun state, Patriot Olufemi Akinyemi assured the Hausa/Fulani Community that the Corps is in touch with other major stakeholders in Southwest and beyond.
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.