By EZEKIEL DONTINNA
Governor Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau State, has said that achieving peace on the Plateau was not the responsibility of a selected few, but a collective effort of all stakeholders, irrespective of faith and ethnic differences.
He stated this recently, while declaring open a training on Health Approach to Violence Prevention for Religious/Faith Leaders in Plateau State, organised by the United Religious Initiative, URI, West Africa (Nigeria CC Cluster 1) in collaboration with the Plateau State Government at the Millennium International Events Centre, Jos.
The governor, who was represented by his Special Adviser on Peace Building, Hon. Monday Nyam Ajiya, commended the organisers of the training for thinking outside the box toward solution breeding ground, describing it as timely, considering the security challenges the state was facing.
He observed that “This is what the government is yearning for, a situation where people will come together and discuss the way forward, by stating their problems openly, to pave way for peace. That is why the event is in conjunction with the state government and all the stakeholders, cutting across the 17 LGAs of the state.
“The peace that we are yearning for is the one that is sustainable because everyone will be involved in proffering a solution. We do not need anybody outside to tell us what to do. We are committed to providing peace on the Plateau so that the development and the peace we are seeing today will be sustained”, the governor stated.
He however charged all the participants to be sincere by opening up to tell the truth about what is bothering them so that they would be able to proffer solutions to what the state was facing.
Earlier, the URI, West Africa Regional Coordinator, Dr. Emmanuel Ande Ivorgba, said “We are beginning to look at violence as a public health.”
On his part, Pastor Andrew Dankat, of the Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), Shendam, and Pastor Otukhagus Benjamin said, the training was timely coming at a time that criminality and lawlessness were the order of the day.
They described peace as priceless and as such one can make whatever sacrifice that is necessary to achieve it and sustain it by stepping down everything learnt to their congression.
Also, the Plateau State Secretary of Islamic Tender Education Initiative (TEDI), Nasarawa Gwom, Gwani Abdullahi Hamza Idris, expressed joy that the training was coming when it was direly needed, emphasising that, “This will pave way for peace on the Plateau”.
