The Presidency has urged warring communities in Jos, Plateau State, and its environs to unite against horrific attacks, saying that retributive violence is not the answer.

This is as it assured all citizens that it is on top of events and will crush the perpetrators of the recent incidents of unrest in Plateau State.

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The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, revealed this on Sunday in a statement titled, ‘Give peace a chance, President Buhari pleads with Jos, other warring communities.’

The statement reads in part, “While these troubled communities are being reinforced with security personnel, our religious, traditional and other community leaders must not allow the use of their spaces for the propagation of violence and incitement to violence.”

It added that there was the Boko Haram and ISWAP terrorism, as well as the spate of kidnappings for ransom, adding that they were transformed by some misinformed global media into a Muslim-on-Christian threat; “yet, in reality, there are no religious connotations at all when the primate purpose of these acts is to extract money.”

Shehu added, “Then the herder-farmer clashes. While international voices and some Nigerian politicians who seek personal gain from division declare this a matter of religion, for those involved it is almost entirely a matter of access to water and land.

“Herders have moved their cattle and into contact with farmers for millennia. But, increasingly, due to population pressure, the increased aridity of northern states, and climate change they are forced to travel further south to find grazing lands.

“Then, further afield in the south-East, IPOB are not struggling for freedom when they attack police stations and property, but rather committing acts of terrorism in order to steal money.”

The Presidency urged that Nigerians “come together firstly by casting asunder those who seek to divide us for their own nefarious financial and political gain.”