A Civil Society Organisation (CSO), the Southern Kaduna Indigenous Peace Practitioners (SOKIPEP), has tasked locals in the area to always provide genuine and credible information to troops deployed there to assist them in stopping the attacks and crisis.
The group said that the security personnel were finding it difficult to determine between genuine and false alarms.
The group stated this in a statement signed by Dr Dauda Fadia, its National Coordinator, and made available to newsmen in Abuja on Sunday.
Fadia said that giving false information about attacks on Southern Kaduna area was not helpful to the security outfits.
According to him, the military can bring the pockets of attacks in the area to an end if the locals could provide them credible information promptly.
He said that it was time for the people to rise to the occasion and support the military and the security agencies in general in bringing an end to the crisis in the area.
Fadia advised the military to continue to work toward the restoration of law and order in Southern Kaduna.
He said that that they should not be discouraged by the many false and noncredible information they had received in the past.
He said such false information led to the troops’ inability to respond on time to some of the attacks that happened in recent past in the area.
He noted that this had made the troops to dissipate their efforts in different directions as well as delayed the response to some actual attacks.
“We observed with dismay that sometimes, the military promptly respond to information given them by our people only to realise the information was fake.
“This is counter productive and not healthy for a people that want the security agencies to nib the crisis in their domain in the bud,” he said.
He also condemned the remarks by some women protesters allegedly linking the military to the unfortunate and protracted situation.
“We as SOKIPEP, note with sadness the remarks made by some women protesters recently where they reportedly linked military personnel working in the area to the crisis.
“While we are not holding brief for the military, we wish to strongly state that contrary to the position of these few, Southern Kaduna is today enjoying some relative peace because of the relentless and ceaseless efforts of the military in securing our lives.
” The troops are usually seen in our villages at night on patrols working with the vigilance groups.
” These unfortunate remarks by the women to say the least, is premature and capable of weakening the morale of the military and also derailing their efforts to restore peace in Southern Kaduna,” he said.
He explained that his members who are mostly Southern Kaduna vigilante members, were working closely with security outfits on patrol and intelligence gathering in the area.
“Our members constitute most of the vigilante members and cut across the entire Southern Kaduna.
” We have been working closely with the military on patrol and sharing intelligence reports which have greatly reduced the number of attacks and even casualties.
“We are also aware that they have prevented some attacks.
The military men are really cooperating with us and I think we should support them to succeed instead of demoralising them through our negative statements and false allegations,” he said.
He also called on the Southern Kaduna people to cooperate with security personnel so that together, the crisis in the area would come to an end.
