The Interfaith Mediation Centre (IMC), has, ahead of the planned National Protest, called on government at all levels to apply dialogue by listening to yearnings of citizens to avoid any possible escalation of conflicts.
This came in a press statement signed by the Executive Directors of the Interfaith Mediation Centre (IMC), Imam Dr. Mohammed Ashafa and Rev. Dr. James Wuye, and made available to newsmen in Jos, the Plateau State capital yesterday.
The statement says, “as conflict mediators and religious leaders working with the people on issues bothering on peaceful coexistence, we have observed the trend of happenings and ventilation of anger by various groups on the issues superimposing them on our conflict early warning filtering screens.
“Analyzing and mapping the generated materials, we concluded that if these are not responded to early enough, it can lead to violence and breakdown of law and order in Nigeria. It is difficult to manage and control crowd during protests. The recent experience in the country is a clear attestation to this assertion.
“We, hereby, use this medium to call on our government at all levels to apply dialogue by engaging all relevant stakeholders, thereby, listening to the yearnings of the citizens which we believe will promotes peace and stability for the common good of all”, it stated.
IMC posited that most protests were hijacked by mischief people and could turned into looting, destruction of innocent people’s property leading to killing which if not organized in most cases, escalated into various kinds of conflicts.
It also observed that, such cases could be prone to religious conflict that could not be ruled out given Nigeria’s sensitive tendencies to religion stating, “as one of the most religious sensitive nation in the world, we fear that some individuals or groups can give it that coloration.
“With our backgrounds and experiences in about three decades of pragmatic conflict mitigation in and outside the shores of Nigeria, no nation in the world can handle refugees from Nigeria if things goes out of hand
“It is an indisputable fact that, Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa, hence the dire need for her stability because the stability of Nigeria is the stability of Africa”, the organisation observed.
The Interfaith Mediation Centre, however, recalled the last national protest on hunger, high cost of living and insecurity arising from stringent measures taken by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as efforts to better economy which later brought untold hardship on the citizens both big and small.
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