The much-publicised relocation of the Chief of Army Staff to Benue, intended to curb the abominable genocide in the state, has proven to be a failed gambit.
This was starkly evident over the weekend when Fulani herdsmen massacred more than 200 people in Yelwata and Daudu in the Guma LGA. Beyond relocation, Olufemi Oluyede must devise fresh strategies to contain the bloodthirsty herdsmen.
Just a week earlier, herdsmen murdered 43 citizens in Gwer and Apa LGAs, including a Catholic priest and a mobile police officer. The daily killings prompted Oluyede to announce his move from Abuja to Makurdi, the state capital, but since his relocation, little has changed.
Meanwhile, Inspector-General of Police Kayode Egbetokun has assumed control of security operations in the troubled state. The military reportedly deployed air surveillance over Benue on Sunday, yet these measures have failed woefully to stem the slaughter.
At least 270 citizens were killed in the state between April and May, before the weekend’s carnage, according to a national newspaper tally on June 4. This is devastating, as Nigeria is not officially at war. By comparison, that casualty figure surpasses the toll from the Israel-Iran hostilities.
Tragically, such killings have plagued the state for years. Benue has become one of Nigeria’s ‘killing fields’, where life is solitary, poor, nasty, and brutish, akin to the Hobbesian state of nature.
On New Year’s Day in 2018, herders slaughtered 72 citizens in three LGAs, operating unhindered for over two days. In the latest carnage, the marauders again operated for two days without security forces intervening, highlighting a glaring failure in the security architecture.
From Olusegun Obasanjo to Umaru Yar’Adua, Goodluck Jonathan to Muhammadu Buhari, successive presidents have projected concern for the lives of Nigerians. Yet, the unresolved mass murders in Benue and other parts of the country belie these claims.
Sadly, President Bola Tinubu is no different; he lacks a firm grasp on the security situation. His repeated call for Governor Hyacinth Alia to reconcile the warring parties at a roundtable misses the point, a political gambit devoid of pragmatic action.
As Commander-in-Chief, Tinubu must act decisively. The killers are cold-hearted, and no appeals will sway them; the President should deploy the full force of the state against the herders whose sole mission is to drive people away from their lands.
Unwisely, the Nigerian state has long mixed politics and security. Successive presidents have appeased murderous Fulani killers by refusing to act against open herding, a divisive and outdated livestock practice that has been replaced by ranching elsewhere.
Nigeria is beset by various violent non-state actor groups, including Boko Haram, Ansaru, ISWAP, Mahmuda, Lakurawa, bandits, and Fulani herders in the North. In the South-East, violence persists, partly due to separatist agitation by the Independent People of Biafra, while kidnappers dominate the South-West.
According to the Global Terrorism Index, Nigeria is now the sixth most dangerous country impacted by terrorism in its latest 2025 compilation, having ranked eighth in 2024.
Lives are lost without assistance to victims’ families, and sometimes the dead are blamed for not fleeing their ancestral lands.
Under Buhari, a government spokesman provocatively told indigenous communities frequently attacked by marauders to choose between their lives and their land.
Therefore, beyond playing to the gallery, it is high time Tinubu established an enduring structure to combat the violence. The killers are known to use guerrilla tactics to attack remote communities, so the first response must be to flush invaders from their forest hideouts.
Governor Alia should establish a force to provide an extra layer of security, as relying solely on undermanned federal security forces is dangerous. He should also enforce Benue’s anti-open grazing law.
Nigerians deserve to live in peace and security; the primary duty of the government is to ensure that this is the case.
