“There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for and nothing worth killing for.”
—Tom Robbins
By Omoniyi Salaudeen
Governor Hyacinth Alia is visibly troubled. His heart is bleeding over the horrific attack in Yelwata in Guma Local Government Area of Benue State that led to the death of over 200 innocent citizens of the state.
His soul trembled as he watched Benue drenched in blood and sorrow. Whose heart will not tremble, seeing children, the aged, men, and women in their prime lying lifeless on their land? It will take a stone-heart to visit the scene of the sad incident and leave with a dry cheek. It’s chilling, cruel, and savage. Wailers have run out of tears. Community people are hopeless and helpless. There is no hope on the horizon that the crisis will end any time soon, as the army, the police, and the local vigilante groups are already overwhelmed. The Federal Government has no answer either. The authorities, including Alia, are as confused, perplexed, and thoroughly embarrassed by the failure to secure the lives of the citizens they swore to protect.
The Yelwata horror is not an isolated case in Benue State and the Middle Belt region in recent times. There have been several occurrences with similar levels of brutality and loss of life due to communal, ethnic, or farmer-herder conflicts, as well as state-sponsored violence.
This pattern of attack on farming communities by suspected armed herdsmen, leading to mass casualties, has become a recurring tragedy across Benue, Plateau, and other states in the central zone.
In most parts of the North, escalating insecurity and incessant killings have been tragically ongoing, with incidents similar to or even more severe than the scale of the Yelwata attack.
These recurring attacks have been linked to farmer-herder conflicts, banditry, land disputes, and alleged territorial expansion.
The nature of these attacks often involves unprovoked invasions by heavily armed groups on farming communities, leading to mass displacement, destruction of property, and significant loss of life. The persistent nature of the attacks, coupled with the lack of effective accountability and prosecution of perpetrators, continues to make the security situation in Benue State extremely dire.
The peculiarity of horror of incidents like that of Yelwata lies in the high death tolls, the targeting of civilians, including women and children, and the extreme brutality, such as burning of people alive.
This pattern, sadly, has been repeated in various forms in different parts of the country due to unresolved communal grievances, resource conflicts, religious tensions, and inadequate state response.
In particular, the incessant killings in Benue State appear to be insurmountable due to a complex interplay of historical, environmental, socio-economic, and political factors, exacerbated by systemic failures. Some people have identified resource scarcity as the primary driver of these recurring conflicts, citing increasing population, desertification in the North, and climate change-induced droughts, which are pushing nomadic pastoralists southward in search of grazing land and water. This leads to clashes with sedentary farming communities over dwindling resources.
During the last administration of former Governor Samuel Ortom, Benue State’s 2017 Anti-Open Grazing Law was enacted to address the primary cause of farmer-herder clashes by outlawing nomadic cattle rearing and proposing ranching.
However, this has been largely ignored by federal authorities, poorly enforced, and has been starved of resources for effective implementation, rendering it a “paper tiger.”
Where most of these incidents happened, there are reports of inadequate security presence in the rural areas and flashpoints, both before and after the attacks, allowing the perpetrators to operate with impunity. In most cases, security forces are often accused of slow response time or even complicity and negligence.
One of the reasons for this seemingly lackluster attitude is the centralized command structure of the Nigeria Police Force, which limits the ability of the state governments to effectively respond to local security challenges. Additionally, state-owned community police initiatives like the Benue State Civil Guards are under-equipped and unable to match the sophistication of the attackers.
The unchecked proliferation of small arms and light weapons among non-state actors, including armed herders and criminal elements, further escalates incessant violence.
Many residents and state officials, including the governor, now describe these attacks as directed, planned, and executed, rather than mere clashes. The sophisticated arms and well-coordinated groups in the dastardly act suggest a level of organization beyond simple farmer-herder disputes.
There are insinuations in some quarters that these attacks might have elements of territorial expansion, jihadist movement, and ethnic cleansing, allegedly targeting the Tiv people. While these are strong allegations, they highlight the perceived motive beyond resource conflict. Unfortunately, these attackers exploit porous borders to strike and retreat with little resistance.
Beyond all these, the possibility of political instigation cannot be ruled out. It has become a pattern for desperate politicians to instigate or sponsor in attacks, especially as the election cycle approaches. These factors can contribute to the rise of banditry and make young people susceptible to recruitment by politicians.
Other than grazing, some stakeholders have attributed the escalating insecurity to a deliberate agenda of land grabbing by armed groups. The most troubling concern is the near-total lack of arrests or prosecutions for these massacres, leading to a cycle of impunity that fuels further violence.
This undermines public trust in the government’s ability or willingness to protect its citizens. With the worsening situation, thousands have been displaced into overstretched IDP camps, losing their homes and livelihoods.
In essence, the crisis is not merely a resource conflict, but a deeply entrenched security challenge complicated by powerful interests, a weak state response, and a pervasive culture of impunity, making it incredibly difficult to resolve.
The complexity of the situation must have informed the reason the Chief of Defence Staff, Christopher Musa, said that the crisis in Benue State had gone beyond what the military could solve, emphasizing on political solution. However, for no reason, successive governments, including the present administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, have not developed the political will to apply this option, presumably not to step on powerful toes.
The alternative solution now on the table for debate is the issue of state police. Already, Governor Alia has expressed his strong support for the creation of state police in preference to self-help, which some eminent leaders of thought in the state have suggested. He has expressed his objection to the option of self-defence as a solution to the incessant killings going on in the state.
Instead, he advocated for community policing as a more viable means of securing the state than resorting to self-help measures.
While the debate rages, states and the Federal Government must synergize on the way to frontally deal with the escalating security situation and its attendant loss of human lives.
Due to the prolonged crisis, Benue, as the Food Basket of the nation, has been severely impacted. Farmers are afraid to go to their farms, leading to missed planting seasons, lost harvests, and a decline in agricultural output, contributing to national food insecurity and inflation. Commerce and education have also been disrupted, exacerbating poverty and developmental issues.