The Benue Massacre and the Disconnect in the President’s Press Team’s Response - June 15, 2025

I find it difficult to understand the call for reconciliation between the so-called “warring communities.” If reconciliation is truly being proposed, does that not imply that the perpetrators are known? Otherwise, the President would not have referenced it in his press statement issued following the report of the massacre. 

When reconciliation is mentioned, I find myself asking: reconciliation between whom, exactly? Are we expected to reconcile armed invaders with unarmed indigenous, vulnerable landowners? 

Let us be clear: these perpetrators are not nomadic herders or pastoralists. They are organised killers engaged in a deliberate campaign of conquest and ethnic cleansing, aimed at turning the Benue-Plateau region into a homeland for foreign Fulani interests. 

To those who believe this is merely a "Benue" or "Plateau" issue, think again. This threat is not isolated; they are coming to your towns and communities too. These are mobile, well-armed forces operating as a coordinated killing squad. 

The video footage of the incident is profoundly disturbing and deeply painful to watch. I strongly urge the National Security Adviser (NSA) or the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to ensure that this video is presented directly to the President. 

It is important that he personally witness the horrific killing of innocent children, some of whom were burned alive.

This is not only a tragedy but a heinous crime against humanity.

Regrettably, the press release issued by the President’s media team fails to convey any genuine empathy or concern for the families of the victims. It comes across as detached and perfunctory at a time when the nation demands compassion, accountability, and decisive action.

Chief Bayo Onanuga should refrain from issuing press statements that frame this as a matter of "reconciliation." This isn’t his first time. What is unfolding is not a communal misunderstanding; it is an invasion. It is war, it is purposeful, and it's nationwide. The people who attacked me and my family members at Onicha-Ugbo in Delta State late last year are not Nigerians. 

The massacre of nearly 60 lives is a tragic reminder of the persistent failure of our national security institutions. The massacre will not cease until every Nigerian takes to the streets and the jungle in collaboration with members of the armed forces to expel these killers from our midst. Appearing weak and conciliatory is calamitous. The best approach is showing strength - a show of force, not weakness.

First approach, the Department of State Services (DSS) must act with urgency; those sponsoring and arming the killers must be identified, apprehended, and prosecuted. They just can't be appearing from nowhere and disappearing into thin air like ghosts. 

This atrocity stands as a grave indictment of Nigeria’s security framework and its ability to protect its citizens. 

Credible History of Complicity from High Places

On February 14, 2018, a vigilante leader named Efe, from a village on the outskirts of Benin City, was executed in cold blood by a member of the Nigerian Armed Forces. The shocking event unfolded like a scene from a gangster movie. Efe’s only “crime” was protecting his community’s farmlands from violent herdsmen. Ironically, the same military personnel who killed him went on to release the apprehended herdsmen who had invaded and destroyed the community's farmlands.

Efe’s execution was not an isolated case. A similar incident occurred in Uguleshi, located in the Agwu Local Government Area of Enugu State. There, men in military uniforms stormed the village and arrested 76 farmers, not for violence, but for allegedly planning a protest against herdsmen who had been terrorising the community, destroying farmlands, and violating women. These farmers were detained for weeks. Meanwhile, the actual perpetrators of the violence, rape, and destruction remained untouched, invisible to the same security forces that carried out the arrests.

Still in Enugu State, on April 25, 2016, roughly 500 armed herdsmen launched a predawn attack on Nimbo Village. By 7 a.m., they were killing every human in sight. The night before, the state governor had been alerted, who in turn informed the Commissioner of Police and other federal authorities in Abuja. The Director of the State DSS assured him that all was safe, and he went to bed. Yet, when the attackers struck, there was no response, no police intervention, no military presence. The killers entered the village, murdered, maimed, and vanished, unhindered and unchallenged. Later that day, the governor appeared on television, weeping over the corpses, while the government issued the usual empty threats.

It’s the same story in Aguta Village in Benue State about a decade ago, where innocent boarding school children were butchered and hanged on stakes like animals. And the same across the Middle Belt and the entire South. The incidents are too many to count.

As former Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai once admitted, these killers are not Nigerians. He even travelled to the Sahel to pay compensation to herders who claimed their cattle were rustled in Nigeria, allegedly to prevent further attacks. But he never disclosed who employed these foreign armed herders. Who owns the cattle they’re guarding? How did they cross our borders? Is Nigeria now a grazing reserve for nomadic herders from across Africa?

If these herders are foreign trespassers, invading our farms and raping and killing our people, shouldn’t Nigerians have the right to defend themselves by any means necessary? A recent court ruling in Taraba State says otherwise. He is wrong on the law and on the facts. At this merciless point, can you blame anyone for choosing to strike first rather than wait to be slaughtered? That is what many now call a preemptive right—defend first, ask questions later. To the herders and their backers, it’s about protecting investments. But for ordinary Nigerians, it’s about survival.

Let me state for the record: before the Rwandan genocide exploded into full-scale extermination and destruction, it began with denial, suppression, and silence in the face of repeated, smaller atrocities.

It is deeply troubling that those in positions of authority in Abuja continue to exhibit a disturbing level of indifference in the face of such relentless and senseless violence. This is not just negligence, it is a morbid apathy, and a stark indictment of the leadership in Abuja and the nation's security apparatus.

How has the value of human life deteriorated to this extent in our country? The IGP should wake up or resign. This is not just negligence, it is a morbid apathy, and a stark indictment of the leadership in Abuja and the nation's security apparatus.

It is either that the conquest mission unfolding in Benue/Plateau is state-sponsored to create a settlement in Nigeria for Foreign Fulani, or those in the position to act do not consider stopping the carnage a national priority. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu must put a stop to that school of thought, not by utterances, but by the patriotism of the combat boots on the ground in the Middle-Belt. 

Let it be clearly stated: the indigenous people of Benue and Plateau, or of Nigeria, will never abandon their ancestral lands, nor will they live in exile within their own country.