By Patience Aliyu
Dr Aishatu Armiya’u, a Consultant, Forensic Psychiatrist at the Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH) has identified ethnic profiling as a factor responsible for the incessant farmers/herders crises in the country.
Armiya’u spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sideline of a roundtable discussion on Root Cause of Farmer/Herder Crises in North Central Nigeria, organised by Charis Healthcare and Community Support Initiative, on Friday in Jos.
She urged Nigerians to desist from ethnic profiling as an antidote to the incessant farmer/ herder crises and enhance unity in the country.
NAN reports that the Roundtable focused on the ‘Root Cause of Farmer-Herder Crises in North Central Nigeria’ with focus on Mental health, peace, gender and security.
Armiya’u maintained that the labels given to people sometimes serves as an instigator to the incessant crises and should always be jettisoned.
“Let us endeavour to talk peace, see ourselves as human beings, brothers and sisters and as people before we go to any divide.
” The problem with us is this divide, we were once living in peace why are we now living in chaos,” she said.
Also, Mr Henry Ojenya, Programme Coordinator for Charis Healthcare and Community Support Initiative, called on the public to desist from being reactive to crises without sufficient information.
“One of the measures to foster peace for me is that we shouldn’t live based on perception, what you think of by hearsay.
“One of the things that causes crisis is propaganda or unverified information.
“You hear there’s an attack and the next thing is to blame it on a particular group of people without adequate understanding of the problem ” he said.
Ojenya also called on farmers to always be security conscious by reporting early warning signs to the authorities in order to avert crises.
“There are always warning signs and the farmers are good at preempting that something was going to happen, why don’t they respond to it?
“They need to be proactive and get the authorities involved rather than stay quiet till it gets bad or take laws into their hands.
“I also feel the citizens have a part to play, we all go on social media and we do things that are not verified. that’s that’s a problem” he said.
On her part, Mrs Angela Odah, Programme Manager, Rosa Luxemburg foundation(RLS), advised government to be more proactive towards addressing the security situation in the country for posterity in line with its core mandate.
Odah also called on the citizens to take responsibility in fostering peace saying that the government alone could not address the security challenges facing the country. (NAN)
