OpenLife Nigeria reports that the southern part of Kaduna State which has become the epicentre of deadly violence, most of it inflicted by herdsmen on farming communities, came up for a review Tuesday morning.
Speaking on Arise TV, Major General Zamani Lekwot, retd , said the crises that have bedevilled southern Kaduna especially in recent past were principally fuelled by Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, immediate past governor of the State.
According to the retired General, “Mallam Nasir El-Rufai planted the seed of discord in Kaduna State. There was peace in southern kaduna until Mallam Nasir El Rufai came as a governor of the State in 2015. He used the bandits to win election in 2015. He left the state more divided on ethnic and tribal lines. Since he left, peace is gradually returning to Southern Kaduna and Kaduna State in general, the general stated.
It would be recalled that there have been issues of land disputes, kidnappings and killings over the years, with the community leaders pointing accusing fingers against one another, leading to the escalation of violence in recent times in Atyap chiefdom in Zango Kataf Local Government Area of the state.
Significantly, on 15 May 1992 violence erupted between the mainly Moslem Hausa and mainly Christian Atyap communities of the Zangon-Kataf Local Government Area in Kaduna State over trading and land ownership rights, with many deaths. A tribunal set up by the Babangida government sentenced Lekwot and 16 others to death for alleged complicity in the killings, sentences eventually reduced to a short gaol sentence. It was said that his sentence was due to his feud with Babangida. He was assisted in his prolonged battle to avoid execution by Barrister , Colonel Yohanna A. Madaki. By December 1995, Lekwot had received a state pardon.