What the Killings in Benue and Plateau Are Really About

Looking at the charred remains of innocent victims, many of them women and children, you are compelled to ask: What crime did they commit, other than being born into a place and identity they had no control over? It is a horrific scene, one that leaves the conscience burdened and the heart broken.

Watch: Video 1 | Video 2

In what should be a peaceful world, the Benue-Plateau region ought to be a paradise, one of the most fertile lands in Sub-Saharan Africa, rich in heritage, culture, and potential. Instead, this natural gift has become a graveyard of promise: a landscape soaked in blood, and a humanitarian catastrophe marked by mass displacements, ethnic cleansing, and state failure.

A Systematic Campaign of Displacement

The violence sweeping across the Middle Belt and Southern Nigeria is not accidental. Despite the politically correct language employed by our leaders, what is unfolding is a deliberate and well-orchestrated campaign of conquest. Armed militias, falsely cloaked in religious garb, have been invading farming communities, slaughtering innocent civilians, and occupying the vacated lands. This is not a religious war. It is a violent land-grab project, executed by a heavily armed and mobile force that appears to enjoy official immunity.

Life in Plateau State, for instance, like the bloody carnage in Five Camps settlements in Edo State, as you will read later, has become a cautionary tale. After repeated invasions by armed Fulani militias, native farmers are abandoning their ancestral lands. Once deserted, these lands are quietly repopulated by “herders,” many of whom arrive from outside Nigeria. The same pattern is visible in parts of Benue, Enugu, Edo, Ondo, and beyond.

Growing up, we could sleep on the farm. Today, farming is a life-threatening act. One ethnic group appears intent on forcibly taking over Nigeria, while those in Abuja look away, or worse, play dumb.

Political Complicity and a Deafening Silence

Some prominent figures, including the Governor of Bauchi State, Mr. Bala Muhammed, have openly hinted at a TV interview, a plan to transform a yet-to-be-identified state or region in Nigeria into a settlement zone for foreign Fulani cousins from across Africa. They believe Nigeria and any part thereof is their inheritance, regardless of the local population, the law, or the Constitution. This is the heart of the conflict. It is not about religion. It is about conquest, power, and impunity. This is what Abuja is unwilling to confront - the clandestine scheming to turn Nigeria into a Fulani enclave. That's what makes the Bala factor very crucial in the ongoing war against the armed squad of the Fulani Herders. 

Unless those responsible for these atrocities are brought to justice, the political class in Abuja should brace for moral, legal, and political collapse. Nigerians must cease to be refugees in their own land.

Let it be said clearly: these invaders and their sponsors can never inherit Benue/Plateau, or any Nigerian territory. The land belongs to the indigenous people and every law-abiding citizen, irrespective of his or her ethnicity or religious background.

State Security’s Role: A Pattern of Betrayal

One of the most troubling aspects of the herder–farmer conflict in Nigeria, rarely addressed in depth, is the tacit complicity of certain members of the armed forces. This complicity may manifest in two ways: either through active facilitation of attacks or a deliberate unwillingness to respond before or during such incidents.

It remains baffling how bandits were able to breach security at the Nigerian Defence Academy, abduct army officers, and execute them days later. How did they know exactly where to find their targets? To date, none of the perpetrators has been brought to justice.

Even more perplexing is the contrast with how swiftly Nigerian security operatives coordinated a cross-border operation to apprehend Nnamdi Kanu in Nairobi, Kenya, executing the mission with remarkable precision and without incident. That capability raises the question: Why has it been so difficult to apprehend heavily armed Fulani militias operating within Nigeria?

This is where what I call the Bala Factor becomes essential to consider in any serious strategy against banditry and armed Fulani aggression. (Watch out for my essay on The Balas Factor in the ongoing conquest mission throughout Nigeria).

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 the apprehension of armed herders violating their women and desecrating their community. Ironically, the same military personnel who killed Efe for protesting their apparent complicity 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 (aiding, abetting, and facilitating conquest) 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 raping their women. These farmers were detained, I believe at Umuahia, for weeks. Meanwhile, the actual perpetrators of the violence, rape, and destruction were never apprehended – they remain invisible to the same security forces who came to the village to execute arrest, just to preempt alleged protest. Same country, but different standard of legal process. 

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 evening before the attack, the state governor was alerted, who in turn informed the Commissioner of Police and other federal authorities in Abuja.t According to a press report, the Director of the State DSS and Commissioner of Police assured him that all was safe, and he went to bed. Yet, when the attackers struck the next morning, 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. The Bloodletting by Herdsmen in Enugu – THISDAYLIVE

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. It is the same story across the Middle Belt and the entire South. Bloodbath in Benue - The Nation Newspaper. Watch: Video | Video

The security lapses and complicit incidents are too many to count. On 23^rd February, 2025, armed herders invaded what the locals called Five Camps in Ovia South Local Government Area in Edo State, about 8 a.m. in the morning. They came, butchered every human being on sight and burned down their houses. See the video story by Efosa Uwaigwe of ITV News. Today, those camps are no more. Please, viewer discretion is advised. 

The Sunday Jackson Case: Justice in Reverse

Perhaps the most disturbing symbol of state bias is the Supreme Court’s recent decision to uphold the death sentence of Sunday Jackson, a farmer from Demsa LGA, Adamawa State. Jackson was attacked by a Fulani herder armed with a knife. Despite sustaining injuries, Jackson defended himself and fatally wounded his assailant. Yet, after seven years in pre-trial detention, he was sentenced to death. Northern CAN Condemns Supreme Court Ruling Upholding Death Penalty for Adamawa Farmer in Disputed Self-Defence Case – Middlebelt Times.

To be sentenced to death for not running from his attacker after dispossessing him of the knife, exemplifies the privileged and protected class the armed cattle herders are in Nigeria, which proves to them the audacity to be law breakers and brutish. In most jurisdictions, this would qualify as self-defence or, at worst, involuntary manslaughter. The judgment affirms a terrifying reality: in today’s Nigeria, a farmer defending his life can be executed while armed invaders walk free. The problem with the Supreme Court’s verdict on Jackson. 

Following the Money and the Borders

Former Kaduna Governor Nasir El-Rufai once admitted that the attackers are not Nigerians. He even travelled to the Sahel to compensate foreign Fulani herders whose cattle were allegedly rustled in Nigeria. The Governor's journey ought to provide a good lead to unravelling the mystery that ensconced the herders' troubled voyage.  Who owns the cattle? Who arms the Killing Squad? And why is the traverse into and within the Nigerian territory an easy foray? FLASHBACK: How We Paid Some Fulani To Stop Killings In Southern Kaduna, Says El-Rufai | Sahara Reporters. There is much to this cross-border compensatory engagement that meets the eye. You cannot know the herders whose cattle have been rustled, without a glimpse of those behind the mask, facilitating herders' carnage all over Nigeria. 

If these attackers are indeed foreign, Nigerians have every right to defend their land and lives. A court may rule otherwise, but natural law, morality, and survival instincts do not.

What Now?

At this juncture, can the NSA, the IGP, and the Chief of Army Staff face the nation and say: Never again? Can they promise that no Nigerian will be forced to be a refugee in their own land? If not, Nigerians will make that declaration for them: Enough is enough.

As I was editing this piece, I came across a video of President Tinubu visiting survivors in Benue, and in one instance, he asked a Police officer why no arrests had been made. Tinubu visits survivors of Yelewata attack in Benue hospital - Vanguard News. While this show of empathy is welcome, it must be matched with action. The President must tell his security chiefs: This must stop. No more excuses. Justice must be swift. Not a single inch of Nigeria’s territory is up for grabs. And hearing the President asking the Police Officers in the locality why no arrest has been made was heart-warming. 

A Call to Nigerians

So what can we, as Nigerians, do?

We must unite across tribes and faiths to safeguard the dignity of all citizens. We must demand accountability, protect our communities, and expose those who profit from division and chaos. At the community level, one thing is clear: armed or unarmed herders posing a threat must leave. Peaceful co-existence is impossible without justice and respect. Know your history and learn from the experience of the Tiv, Idoma, Latang, and the Hausa, etc - you accommodate them, you risk exposing your descendants to becoming permanent refugees in their own country and second-class citizens in their father’s land. 

Therefore, if in a moment of peril, security response might not be swift, and knowing that justice may likely be unkind to you in the event of self-defence, even when commensurate with the attack, then you are left with one option: Say no to Fulani Herders settlement in your community. Settlement facilitates criminality and aggression; without settlement, there wouldn't be confrontation or trespassing. That must be the starting point - zero tolerance for open grazing and Fulani settlement. 

Finally, to the victims and their families, my heart bleeds for you. You were killed not for crimes, but for being who you are, where you are. May your souls find peace, and may justice find those responsible.