The Muslim Rights Concern, MURIC, has advised the Federal Government to kick-start a national healing process through a comprehensive pacification exercise.
The MURIC director, Ishaq Akintola, who disclosed this in a statement on Thursday, said it is time for Nigerians to speak for peace not just for their religion but for their country.
According to the director, the situation requires the immediate intervention of President Muhammadu Buhari as a statesman not as a politician.
The statement said: “The state of the nation demands that Nigeria must begin a national healing process, psyches have been badly bruised and egos battered and Nigerians have been turned into enemies of one another courtesy of hate speeches and fake news.
“FG can kick-start the process of national healing by rolling out a comprehensive plan of compensation for all those who lost properties to clashes between herders and farmers.
“The houses of Sunday Igboho and those of the Seriki Fulani of Igangan as well as the victims of the Shasha ethnic clash may be rehabilitated in the interest of peace.
“Compensate farmers whose crops were destroyed by herders’ cows while owners with genuine evidence of loss of cattle during ethnic hostilities may be pacified.
“FG should also assist cow owners to buy land for ranches by granting them bailout funds and State governments are urged to register cow owners.
“These steps cost a lot of money but peace building is expected to be expensive yet it costs less than war. The ravages of war are better imagined than experienced,” the statement added.
Mr Akintola claimed that threats and blackmails were sent to MURIC to turn them against Northerners.
He said: “On our own part, we know how we were maligned, blackmailed and threatened with assassination. We were insulted and were called slaves of the Fulani oligarchy but we know it was a ploy to turn us against Northern Muslims.
“Nigerian Christians keep drawing closer to themselves from the South to the Middle Belt and it is those who want to separate Muslims of the South West from their Northern brothers that are making efforts at reaching out to their Christian brothers in the Middle Belt, the North and the South East.
“We refuse to be fooled and our solidarity with our Northern brothers remains as solid as the Rock of Gibraltar. There is no criminal element involved in that, it is a religious bond and a fraternal bond of love,” he added.
The director also revealed that false reports were spread about MURIC in order to silence the groups’ human rights efforts.
“Our traducers once lied that MURIC collected $200,000 from ISWAP and Boko Haram. The aim was to silence us, but it only added tonic to our zeal and determination to pursue the truth, defend the oppressed and promote Allah-given fundamental human rights of Nigerian Muslims.
“We have forgiven our own traducers because they are fellow Nigerians and if there must be peace people must be ready to forgive.
“Let it be on record that forgiveness started from MURIC and we have never incited anyone to violence or delivered any hate speech neither has any fake news originated from our end.
“Nigeria will be a better place if all of us can make the same claim better still, if those who did it before can turn a new leaf.
“We appeal to Muslims who nurse certain grievances to forgive their neighbors. The Glorious Qur’an says, ‘Goodness and evil cannot be compared.
“’Pay back evil with kindness so that those who were bitter enemies before can become close associates’ (Qur’an 41:34).
“In like manner, aggrieved Christians should sheath their swords because Jesus (peace be upon him) ‘Forgive, that you may be forgiven, for if you will not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven.’ (Mathew 6:14),” the director concluded.