By Ehichioya Ezomon
Once again, communities in Benue State – the acclaimed “Food Basket of the Nation – are under attack, with death and destruction everywhere. Naturally, the survivors, from crying, moaning and wailing, will run to seek refuge and shelter in neighbouring and distant communities or internally-displaced persons’ (IDPs) camps to mourn their losses, resign to faith to avert the next attack, which will come in the cycle of orgy that’s taken over Nigeria.
This was the situation in the Yelewata community, Guma local government area of Benue overnight of Saturday, June 15, 2025, when over 100 people were massacred, either shot, butchered or burnt alive beyond recognition in their houses doused with petrol and lit.
A heart-rending aspect to the carnage is that the invaders gave advance notice, and this warning was communicated to the relevant authorities and law enforcement agencies. But when the attackers arrived, those sworn to defend and protect the people were found wanting!
And all we do, as a people, and as a self-governing entity, is to throw up our hands in the air, express sympathy, promise to deal with the perpetrators, throw foods and cash at the victims, and go back to our comfort zones with no real solution to the endless carnage of INNOCENT INDIGENOUS PEOPLE. (Emphasis mine)
So, it’s not enough for President Bola Tinubu to declare that, “Enough is now enough” to the blood-letting in Benue because, there’s no time – and nowhere – killing of innocent people is seemingly permitted as in Nigeria. A presumed innocent’s life can only be taken away via duly applied law. Any other means is barbaric, illegal, and punishable according to the offence of murder!
Hardened criminals have their day with the law until found guilty. And they’ve the luxury of appeal and even pardon. But the innocent Benue people – and others across Nigeria where criminals appear to have the free rein to perpetrate and perpetuate cold-blooded murder and plunder – don’t have such luxury.
Where does Mr President’s “Enough is now enough” come from? Are we to imply or believe that the blood-thirsty vampires, parading as herders, bandits, Boko Haram, ISWSP, Lakurawa, and the lately identified terror group, Mamuda, are given time and space to rape, kill, destroy and plunder before they’re stopped?
Defenceless, helpless and hopeless, innocent indigenous people are attacked in their farms, in their homes in the dead of night, in their markets, in their worship places, in their schools, and in hospitals and on the highways.
Displaced from their ancestral homesteads, the people move in droves to brace the elements in uninhabitable open market stalls, or make-shift IDPs’ camps, where, sooner than later, the marauders will visit them with further deaths and destruction. There’s nowhere to run, and no place to hide from the killers!
Mr President cautioned on Tuesday, June 17, that, “Political and community leaders in Benue State must act responsibly and avoid inflammatory utterances that could further increase tensions and killings. They should also rein in those who go out to cause provocations and ignite reprisal attacks.”
There’s nothing we don’t hear in Nigeria! Let’s not muddle up things, Mr President. You went to Benue on Wednesday, June 18, due to the massacre of community people, mainly farmers, even in the IDP camps. These attacks don’t result from inflammatory utterances and provocations that cause further killings and reprisal attacks, but are planned and executed to attain a certain end.
The cycle of mindless raping, killing, destruction, plundering and pillaging is no longer herder-farmer clash, banditry or cattle-rustling. Let’s call it by its real, actual, and proper name: Ethnic cleansing and genocide!
During your visit, Mr President, the Chairman of the Benue State Council of Traditional Rulers, the Tor Tiv, Orchivirigh Prof. James Ayatse, told you that the Benue repeated attacks weren’t herder-farmer clashes, but genocidal invasion for land-grabbing.
The Tor Tiv’s words: “Your Excellency, it is not herder-farmer clashes. It is not communal clashes. It is not reprisal attacks or skirmishes. What we are dealing with here in Benue is a calculated, well-planned, full-scale genocidal invasion and land-grabbing campaign by herder-terrorists and bandits.”
Mr President, the aim of the attackers is, first, to occupy, subjugate, dominate and convert; and then to annihilate, eliminate, exterminate, extinct and erase any traces of the people and their tradition, culture, language, and heritage. To achieve this goal, they create fear, panic, inflict pain and put to flight those alive to abandon their lands and communities, which the invaders occupy and rename in their own language.
Talking about foreign invaders, do they come and forcefully occupy our communities? NO! The unpatriotic collaborators and backers within and outside the government – for reasons of politics and/or ethnic and religious domination – invite, harbour, accommodate, plan and collaborate with the hoodlums to carry out nefarious activities.
Have we forgotten how a former Governor of a Northern state confessed to how he and other opposition politicians invited bandits from neighbouring countries, to help create insecurity in Nigeria during the 2015 General Election? And that after the poll, which the opposition won, the bandits refused to return to their countries despite huge monetary compensations offered to them?
What about the open invitation the head of the government from that election extended to all Fulani, anywhere in Africa, to come and make Nigeria their global home? The foreign Fulani have honoured the invitation with exodus from Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, Tchad, Cameroun, Central African Republic and several other countries.
Sadly for Nigerians, the Fulani invitees come into Nigeria as outlaws armed with dangerous weapons and charms. And joined by some local herdsmen, they’re responsible for the human and material atrocities we daily experience in the country today.
Also during the heated debate on ranching, to curb alleged herder-farmer clashes, one presidential candidate equated cows as having equal fundamental rights as Nigerians; and that herders were free to roam and graze their cattle anywhere without let or hindrance from farmers and state governments that’ve enacted Anti-Open Grazing Laws?
But as you aptly emphasised, Mr President, a human’s life is valuable than that of a cow’s, and thus, they’ve no equal fundamental rights, as that politician claimed. These are your words: “I wanted to come here (Benue State) to commission projects, to reassure you of hope and prosperity – not to see gloomy faces… The value of human life is greater than that of a cow. We were elected to govern, not to bury people.” Well said!
Yet, the same politician and the one who confessed to inviting bandits into Nigeria are angling to be President in 2027, and have formed a Coalition of Opposition Politicians to “capture power” from President Tinubu. Imagine the kind of government they’ll foist on Nigeria if they succeed!
Kudos, Mr President, for heeding the viral calls by Nigerians for you, as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Federal Republic of Nigeria, to take the lead and visit Benue to condole, sympathise, and comfort the grieving survivors of the attack, and the people and Government of Benue State.
By your action, you’ve sacrificed politics for security by postponing your official visit to Kaduna, to commission projects, and rerouting your itinerary to Benue, which’s become the epicentre of carnage and depopulation in Nigeria.
Mr President, now that you’ve come, you’ve seen, and you’ve heard from the Benue people – and also visited the hospital to empathise with the injured – you should put your foot down the harder, and assert your absolute power and authority in the area of security. Your public query to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Dr Kayode Egbetokun, is the right message to send.
As you asked: “How come no one has been arrested for committing this heinous crime in Yelewata? Inspector General of Police, where are the arrests? The criminals must be arrested immediately.” No other person can give that command but you, Mr President, as the buck stops at your table.
Mr President, there’s no sacred cow when security tops the priority agenda! Rather than mouth the presence in the government of collaborators with the merchants of death, it’s time to identify those involved, expose and flush them out of the system, and prosecute them accordingly. Also give a marching order to the security agencies to identify the saboteurs in their midst, and flush them out for prosecution.
In other countries not beholden to ethnic, religious and political considerations in matters of security, collaborating with criminal elements to sabotage the system, especially national security, carries a heavy price to pay, as a deterrent, in long-term prison or death sentences, which are carried out to the letter!
But here in Nigeria, our governments, both federal and states, appease, rehabilitate and empower so-called “repentant terrorists,” while their victims are left to lick their wounds. That narrative should change: Let the offenders be punished, and the victims compensated, rehabilitated and empowered! No more room for “Enough is now enough”!
*Mr Ezomon, journalist and media consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria. Can be reached on X, Threads, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp @EhichioyaEzomon. Tel: 08033078357.
