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The last week’s coordinated attacks by Lakurawa insurgent group that left over 30 persons dead in Kebbi State has again raised concerns about the plight of border communities in Nigeria. In June 2025, Yelwata community in Gumi LGA of Benue State was heavily attacked by armed herdsmen. Over 200 defenceless persons died. Also, in February 2026, more than 100 armed jihadists reportedly besieged Woro and Nuku communities in Kaiama LGA of Kwara State and killed over 200 persons. Interestingly, the besieged communities of both states share some natural and geographical similarities.
First, both states are in the North-central geopolitical zone of Nigeria. Second, the communities are located in the boundaries of each state. While Yelwata shares boundary with Kaina in Nasarawa State though it stretches out along Keffi-Benue-Enugu Expressway, Kaiama LGA is bordered by Niger State to the north and Oyo State to the south. Third, they are agrarian communities thriving on mass production of food crops that feed into the national food security loop. Hence, the locals are mainly farmers. Four, the communities in both states are under the siege of Fulani militia and radical jihadists who respectively operate in a scorched earth style and impose the extremist version of Islam.
The people of Yelwata are predominantly Christians by faith. Jude Ortese, a Catholic parishioner, wrote that Yelwata “used to be an out-station of Sacred Heart Parish Udei, one of the earliest parishes began by Spiritan missionaries in Makurdi Diocese.” On the other hand, Woro and Nuku communities are largely Muslims. Those who lost their lives in the violent attacks in the communities were moderate Muslims who refused to give up the traditional teachings of Islam for a radical version preached by the assailants. Unfortunately, the dominant narrative in a section of the media claimed that Kaiama killings were an extension of Christian genocide in Nigeria. The bigoted reportage was insensitive, just as it lacked humanity and emotional intelligence.
Farooq Kperogi, a Nigerian-American professor and newspaper columnist, critiqued the unfair reportage thus: “there is an endemic mass murder of innocents in most parts of Nigeria which I won’t hierarchize by religious affiliation because that’s cruel and inhuman.” He described the unbalanced reports as “Christian Genocidization” of the Kaiama Massacre. He made a valid point. Wasting of innocent blood, no matter the faith of victims, is condemnable. However, while there is overwhelming evidence that Christian communities in North-central Nigeria are targets of outright annihilation for the purpose of land grabbing and effective occupation, it does not also make it right to under-report and treat as irrelevant the massacre of moderate Muslims by those bent on foisting radical Islam. That is tantamount to selective morality.
Though the theatres of the brigandage differ in time and space, the pattern of the coordinated, relentless, and unchallenged attacks by the militias in both states and others, is a direct indictment on the country’s security architecture. It exposes the nation’s weakness in early warning response. In Yelwata, just like other areas of Benue State, repeated warnings were ignored. Rising tensions were not defused. There was little or no sustainable countervailing measures to forestall impending attacks. A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mike Ozekhome, had noted that “the peaceful people of Yelwata were not victims of chance. They were targeted. They were hunted. And they were massacred.” He corroborated the known fact in the public domain that the aim of Fulani attackers was to “seize ancestral lands, decimate indigenous populations and spread fear as a weapon of conquest.” Ozekhome asserted that reducing the wicked agenda to mere herder-farmer clashes “is to excuse genocide with semantics” and opined that “it is a harrowing indictment of leadership failure, systemic neglect and institutional cowardice.”
Also, the recent Kaiama massacre has been termed a “stunning security failure” by Amnesty International. The ominous signals were a pointer that all was not well in the communities. The surrounding forests were/are occupied by non-state actors that challenge the authority of the state. The conflict triggers were palpable. The dastardly invasion was a disaster waiting to happen. The intelligence community cannot claim ignorance of the operations of Mahmuda, a splinter faction of Boko Haram in rural communities in Kwara State. In fact, it was reported that the deadly group had been distributing leaflets in Woro and Nuku communities for five months before the violent attack. “These communities have been receiving these pamphlets, soliciting them to join the extremist views and preaching by these militants…After they see a bit of resistance from the people, they then started sending them warnings”, wrote Isa Sanusi, Head of Amnesty International Nigeria.
A common thread in the foregoing analysis is that threats of attacks were a recurring decimal and that they were duly reported to security agencies. In most cases, the security agencies mobilized and patrolled for some days in the areas, to bolster the people’s confidence, and returned to their operational base. No steady presence. No aerial surveillance. No targeted smoking out of the dare-devil criminals from their hideouts in forests. Apparently, the open identification of security agencies with the locals in Kaiama LGA backfired. The blood-sucking marauders were angered and they cleared off the vigilantes, went for the village head who was luckily unavailable, before descending on the inhabitants with maiming, arson, dastardly killings and abduction of fleeing survivors.
This post-mortem brings us to the mandate of Border Communities Development Agency (BCDA) which was established by the 2003 Act and amended in 2006. The agency was established to galvanize development activities in terms of infrastructure, social well-being, economic prosperity and security of lives and property in over 3,000 border communities across 21 states. How are the annual budgets utilized? Nigerians should ask questions. A working BCDA will help in both kinetic and non-kinetic control of insecurity in border communities. It is not enough to blame the already overwhelmed security agencies. Institutions should be alive to their responsibilities and do away with reactionary approach to serious governance deficits. The border communities must arise, unite and fight their cause. They must raise their voices to be heard.
