Benue State has again dominated the headlines for wrong reasons. Not natural disaster. Not tragedies associated to human errors. But massacres fueled by ethnocentrism and mindless competition over economic resources. Agrarian communities have been turned to killing fields enabled by hate silence, elite complicity, politicization of insecurity and dereliction of duty on account of self and career preservation.
With about 34,000Km2 of land mass, Benue is the eleventh biggest State in Nigeria. It has vast arable land and pasture. The natural vegetation and freshwater in the floodplains of Benue River make the area irresistible to herders. Commercial quantities of agricultural produce like yam, cassava, rice, etc, from the state contribute to the country’s food security. The state rightly bears the moniker, “Food Basket of Nation.”
Most unfortunately, these blessings are turning to a curse. Some of the local populations have known no peace for decades. The recent killing of close to 200 persons in their sleep by suspected Fulani herdsmen in Yelewata, Gomu LGA of the state, has reopened old wounds. The survivors are traumatized by gory memories of cold-blooded murder of their loved ones and breadwinners. Some of them are in the internally displaced persons (IDP) camps. They are left famished. The stench of charred bodies is unnerving. Thus, in a scorched-earth style, host communities are visited with genocide, devastation of farm lands, and wanton destruction of private and public buildings.
The carnage did not start today. Media reports indicated that between February 2013 and May 2017, 46 attacks allegedly carried out by suspected Fulani herders resulted in the death of 1,541 persons and devastations of varying degrees in 15 out of 23 LGAs of the state. The Fulani herders claimed that the attacks were not unprovoked, rather they were reprisals for their rustled cattle and brothers killed by the locals.
Thus, in his quest for a permanent solution to the incessant crisis, the former governor of the State, Samuel Ortom, signed the ‘Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law 2017’. The new legislation outlawed open grazing and encouraged establishment of private ranches. The law allowed six months moratorium before its implementation and created Benue State Livestock Guards to assist the security agencies in its enforcement. However, no sooner had the law been signed than the Fulani socio-cultural group, Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, issued a press statement and vowed to resist its implementation.
The new law was not without consequences for Ortom. He became a target of internecine attacks and survived assassination attempts. Coming from the same ethnic group, the insistence of former president Buhari to rehabilitate the old grazing/cattle routes apparently emboldened the armed herders. The anti-open grazing law was politicized. Ortom was treated as an endangered species. His political opponents feasted on his face off with the presidency to advance their interests. Perhaps if the previous efforts to checkmate open grazing and contain the impunity of armed herders had worked, the nation would not have witnessed the monumental loss of lives and property in Yelewata.
Based on public outcry and national mood, President Tinubu visited Benue State last week to demonstrate empathy and directly assess the situation. And to my mind, the best address to Mr. President on that day was made by James Ayatse, a retired professor of Biochemistry and former Vice Chancellor of two federal universities. Presently, he is the Tor Tiv V, the paramount ruler of the Tiv nation and Chairman, Benue State Traditional Council. His speech was hard hitting. No rigmarole. No political correctness. He noted that “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.” According to him, “it’s not herders-farmers clashes, it’s not communal clashes, it’s not reprisal attacks or skirmishes.” He cautioned against what he called misinformation and misrepresentation of Benue crisis insisting that “Wrong diagnosis will always lead to wrong treatment… We are dealing with something far more sinister than we think. It’s not about learning to live with your neighbours; it is dealing with a war.” The paramount ruler did not spare the political class. He pointedly accused them of festering the crisis for political gains. Indeed, the Tor Tiv’s dispassionate analysis of decades of bloodbath in the state set the issues in perspective.
On the other hand, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Christopher Musa, located the Benue crises to three thorny issues: land grabbing, movement of cattle, and cattle rustling. Professor Mohammed Labdo of Maitama Sule University, Kano, had asserted that “Tiv people of Benue state originated from the Fulanis, making the latter the real owners of the land in the state.” Using Katsina-Ala in the state as his evidence, he boasted that no one would rightly contradict his claim. Another scholar, Professor Zacharys Anger Gundu, an archeologist with Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, took exception to what he implied as Labdo’s poor sense of history and described him as a predatory scholar, noting that “Anthropologically, the origin of the Tiv has been studied in the context of Tiv oral traditions, historical linguistics and archaeology.” He explained how the name, Katsina-Ala, came about, and that it did not originate from Fulani.
These perspectives reveal the deeper dimensions to the contestations in Benue. And like the CDS said, it is political authority that would resolve the issues and not security agencies. But security agencies have constitutional obligations to do their jobs. It is sickening to note that these killer-herdsmen come in numbers and leave after attacks without being arrested. It won’t therefore, be out of place to conclude that the merchants of terror enjoy protection from high quarters.
So, beyond the committee set up by President Tinubu to find solution to the crises, our criminal justice system must be activated to deal decisively with the criminals and their sponsors. Otherwise, people would resort to self-help. Community policing should be part of the broader containment strategy. Nigerians await Tinubu to fulfil his promise of recruiting able-bodied youths to complement our under-policed system and safeguard the ‘ungoverned’ spaces.