Interfaith Mediation Centre (IMC), Kaduna has take peace campaign to Kasuwar Magani community in Kajuru Local Government Area (LGA) of Kaduna State. This is to mark this year’s interfaith Harmony Week and part of efforts towards ensuring peaceful coexistence and religious tolerance between Christians and Muslims in the state and the country at a large.
IMC’s Co-Executive Director for Kaduna, Imam Muhammad Ashafa said that the success stories of the peaceful coexistence and forgiveness so far recorded in Kasuwan Magani and Kajuru LGA could be attributed to the people themselves, particularly the women who collectively resolved to give peace a chance in their community.
Explained that the wisdom behind the relative peace being experienced in the crises-prone Kasuwan Magani did not just happened overnight, but because the people agreed to take their destiny into their hands, not waiting for the government to bring security for them, nor for any political intervention. They rather resolved as a people to help their community heal and live in peace, because it is their wish to live in peace.
According to him, the IMC, in collaboration with the state government, various security agencies, traditional institutions and other platforms, worked assiduously in the days of bloody conflicts where killings and maiming of lives and destruction of property were rife, on how to return sanity back to the area.
He further explained: “Today, we are celebrating Kajuru and Kasuwan Magani where the same market was rebuilt and people from far and near have returned to market their products”, Dr. Ashafa added.
He noted that “it was the wish of the Kasuwan Magani community members who decided to say we’re going to stay and work towards maintaining peace in their area. And that’s why one of the mandates the community promoted was that, any stranger who comes into the community and is hosted by anyone and if that stranger is discovered to promote violence or conflict of any kind, then, both the stranger and his host will be banished from the community”.
Revd. Makama Danjuma Mazadi of Grace Baptist Church Kasuwan Magani recalled what happened in his community in 2018, when he was the chapter Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). He said that the troubled community members went through was serious, and the cessation of peace turned the area into a death zone.
According to him, since the crisis, there is a breach of trust among the people.
He said that, with the intervention of IMC and other Non-Governmental Organisations to help and ensure that Kasuwan Magani is revived, and the support of the state government, which created lots of meetings and seminars, gave the people confidence.
He said: “If there’s no peace, our worships is irrelevant. Our worships to God is not truthful and hence, we have to strife for peace. And because of what has happened in Kasuwan Magani, we decided to initiate lots of things that will bring peace and one of such is the unity between Pastors and Imams. This has given us the courage to visit mosques and churches.”
Mazadi commended the IMC’s Mercy Corps, as well as other NGOs for their efforts at ensuring that peace is restored to their community. He said: “We thank these organisations and wish we have other international donors that will support IMC and Mercy Corps among others to assist them spread this interventions to other places where there are crises, because when there’s unity, there’s peace”.
Sharing her own story of loss, trauma, hatred, love and forgiveness, 19-year old, Nuria Yusuf, who lost her father during the crisis, said: “Life for me, and my four siblings became very difficult after our father was killed.
She said: “We ran into serious financial problems and the burden of the upkeep rested squarely on the frail shoulders of my mother alone who could barely make ends meet for the five of us.
“After my father’s demise, I hated the Christians thinking they were the ones that killed my father. However, when IMC came in preaching peace, I had a rethink about the whole issue especially when both sides have the same story to tell.
“Today, I do not hate the Christians any more because all of my friends are mostly from the Christian faith, and not even one from the Muslim faith. I have forgiven everyone and allowed God to heal my heart”.
The event was organised by IMC and supported by the Opus Prize. It coincided with the weekly Kasuwan Magani market where survivors of conflicts in the area come out enmass to share their stories of survival.
