Faith for Peace project (F4P) co-funded by the European Union and Bread for the World implemented by TEKAN Peace Desk and Centre for Community Actions for Peace and Development on Tuesday organised a one-day walk in Malam Sidi and Kwami Gari in Kwami Local Government Area of Gombe State on the importance of peace in a bid to prevent violent extremism.
Our correspondent reports that the project aims to empower local actors in promoting peacebuilding, human rights democracy and religious tolerance in Nigeria from April 2023 to October 2025.
At Kwami Gari the walk commenced from Kwami Science Primary School to neighbouring settlements including Raintan, Fawo, Demi, and Suwa, with participants from faith-based youth groups, vigilante among others.
Speaking, TEKAN’s Process Holder, Blessing Hamman, explained that the walk was part of the organisation’s intervention in entrenching peaceful co-existence in Kwami Gari targeted at community-based organisations, civil society organisations, and faith-based organisations, adding that much emphasis should placed on human rights.
She said, “It project looks at how we protect our own dignity as humans in aspect of religion, how can you use your faith to promote peace, so this has been the key element of our intervention in the three local governments of Gombe State, Kwami, Yamaltu Deba and Billiri LGAs.
“However, within these three LGAs; we are working in six communities, In Kwami, we are working in Kwami Gari and Mallam sidi, in Billiri, we are working in Billiri as well as Kalmai communities and in Yamaltu Deba, we are working in Deba as well as Kunuwal, one of our special community.”
Hamman noted that the engagement has focused on existing structures in the community to maintain peace, adding that the road walk was geared towards extending the enlightenment to greater population.
She said, “This is because we were not able to engage the entire community members, we are working with a specific group that has a very particular number of individuals in their group.
“Now, how can we reach out to other community members who are not part of this groups to know that this is what is happening? That brought about the need to organise this road walk, the people turned up en masse and they were holding the placards, very willing to preach the gospel of peace in their community and that is the main activity we did today.
“Honestly, we have seen their optimism in order for them to see that they live in unity. We are looking forward to the community members to see that this message of peace is preached far beyond intervention of TEKAN Peace Desk that they can even go far beyond us, that it is now Kwami gari that is preaching the message of peace to other communities that are around them, this is the target of our coming today and we are able to achieve our objectives.
“Muslims are willing to collaborate with the christians, the same way Christians have shown willingness to collaborate with Muslims, you can even see the hunters, because we cannot say there are no traditional worshippers, but they are also willing to cooperate with us, so we are hoping that by the end of this project, there will be collaboration between different stakeholders of this community to preach the gospel of peace.”
On his part, District Head of Kwami Gari, Musa Abdu, who was represented by the Wakili, Umar Abdu, hailed the peace initiative implemented by TEKAN Peace Desk saying “We have been with them for over 20 months and we still have 10 months remaining. They have continued to engage people from different backgrounds, with emphasis for religious tolerance, we really appreciate them.”
Abdu noted that as traditional leaders promotion of peace is their statutory function, stressing that the collaboration has made their work easy, “We have different people here, different culture here in Kwami, we have people from different part of this country in Kwami. They have made the work of traditional leaders simple.”
Continuing Abdu added, “I don’t have any better word to express our gratitude because they engaged us, see even here, you won’t know who is who they joined us together. In this Kwami, we are developing. Anyone who came to Kwami 10 years back, you will see Kwami is developing, see security lights, we are staying in peace, there can’t be development without peace, so we are calling on the people to shun tribalism, religious violence.”
Also, Mohammed Adamu, ward leader of Raintan commonly called Mai Unguwa harped on the importance of peace, lauding the TEKAN Peace Desk for impacting the people with the importance of peacebuilding.
“We will welcome the team, whenever they come. We want everyone who visits us here to live in peace with us. We don’t want disrespect from anyone so that we can benefit from each other,” he said.
Ward head of Suwa, Bala Isa, commended the organisers of the peace walk saying “This is what we want to be done and it was done well, more than expected. And these people have brought something that we will benefit in this community, especially unity and religious tolerance and so many other things.”
Continuing the Mai Unguwa added, “For that, we are calling on them to continue this good deed and extend it so that everybody can benefit.”
Musa Usman who represented the ward leader of Fawo described the walk as a welcome idea, “We are gratitude to the organisers for emphasising the importance of peace and we are going to stay together without any problem,” he assured.
He continued saying, “This awareness is good, so we’re going to tell our people that this organisation came, they are telling us to live together without any problem. So we are grateful and we are going to tell our people insha Allahu, and always we are going to give our maximum cooperation.”
Also, Umar Hassan, Mai Unguwa of Demi, commended the organisers while expressing his gratitude, “In fact am highly impressed, only that I was not informed earlier on I would have joined this group. Now that I have numerous engagement, am not able to join you people, for that reason, am supporting this programme 100 per cent,” he added
He urged organisers to expand participation in order to have foot soldiers of peace adding, “Now that you are going, people are wondering, what is the whole thing about, I started explaining things, especially to this old man standing close to me, I told him the essence of the walk, because it comprises of both Muslims and Christians and even pagans are all involved in this crowd, moving, jubilating, dancing. I mean it’s a welcomed thing, It is highly impressive, please next time, inform us we will join you and even inform the town crier to come along and inform people so that the crowd can be more than this.”
