In the year 2020, I lost my childhood friend Jack (pseudo name) in a hospital in Abuja. He was being treated for Typhoid and Malaria. He was treated for this ailment for years, without cure.
At a point, we became worried as to why the treatment of a sickness as simple as Typhoid and Malaria could be that notorious.
From hospital to hospital my friend was visiting and spending money just to find a cure to the sickness.
When we later found out that my friend was suffering from Hepatitis B, and not the Typhoid and Malaria that was wrongly diagnosed it was too late to save him. We lost him!
This is a complete replica of what is happening in Benue State today. The killings in Benue State just as the Benue State chapter of the All Progressive Congress (APC), puts it, is an agenda carefully orchestrated to grab the fertile Benue Ancestral land.
However, successive governments, both state and federal have not been able to make an accurate diagnosis of the root cause.
The unprovoked killings in Benue State have reached its crescendo with some concern citizens and non-citizens within and outside the country, calling for an immediate end.
Every day, there is a reported case of coordinated bloody terrorist attacks in the state, leaving many dead including children who are supposed to be future leaders.
The blood which started flowing in torrent in 1999 has now turned to a veritable flood, with inundated gory pictures and videos of citizens murdered in cold blood in the state each passing day.
The killing of defenseless citizens is successfully carried out across communities in the state unchallenged. Begging the question what the Ex-military generals and other retired security chiefs are doing in the state.
A recent report published by Amnesty International shows that about 10,217 people were killed in attacks by gunmen in Nigeria between 2023 and 2024, in Benue, Edo, Katsina, Kebbi, Plateau, Sokoto and Zamfara states.
The report said out of this number, Benue State accounts for the highest death toll of 6,896, while over 148 villages were sacked across seven local governments of the state.
According to the report, in Benue state, the gunmen ensured that after killing people, they also destroyed bore holes, clinics and schools.
The report also revealed that during the attacks on communities in Ukum and Logo local governments, Amnesty International gathered evidence that grain reserves and places of worship were also destroyed.
The report findings also show that all of the 23 local government areas of Benue state suffered such attacks, with more frequent attacks on Ukum, Logo, Katsina-Ala, Gwer West, Gwer East, Apa and Agatu local government areas.
This paper gathered that an estimated 500,182 people had fled to IDPs camps in Benue state since the killing began, with additional 10,000 displaced since the start of 2025.
The Director of Amnesty International Nigeria, Isa Sanusi, said “The situation risks creating a humanitarian disaster, which the authorities must urgently address by ensuring that people’s essential needs are met by providing desperately needed aid.”
The IDP camps in the state are ill-equipped with inadequate shelter, exposing IDPs to harsh weather, overcrowding, and heightened risks of disease, as well as gender-based violence, including rape and domestic violence.
According to reports, access to healthcare is also a major challenge in the IDP camps with a lack of treatment for the most common diseases and ailments, such as malaria, typhoid, and stomach ulcers.
One of the camp officials was quoted as saying that births occur almost daily in the IDP camps, with many pregnant women requiring medical attention but also contracting infections because of inadequate hygiene facilities.
What The Government Is Doing
No sustainable solutions have been proffered by the government since the escalation of the issue because of wrong diagnosis. Successive governments thought it was a mere fight between the herders and farmers, therefore, all the interventions were directed towards ending the herder/farmer crisis, why the real issue remained unattended to.
President Bola Tinubu during his visit to the state, urged the herders and the farmers to live peacefully together, and that the state should provide a land for ranching, revealing the kind of information available to the President.
Meanwhile, the Benue paramount ruler, Tor Tiv James Ortese Iorzua Ayatse, submitted that the crisis in the state is not a farmers-herders crisis or communal clashes. Ayatse said the crisis in Benue State is a well calculated full genocidal land grabbing campaign by herders.
This could be deduced from the modus operandi of the herders, where communities are ransacked and the land taken over a few days after the attack.
The Benue State government under the leadership of Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia, aside from purchasing security vehicles and funding security operations, has also increased local government security vote from the one million naira paid by his predecessor to ten million naira monthly to enable local governments to join in the fight against these renewed attacks.
Despite this, the best solution to the killings in Benue State is in the identification of the problem; the consciousness that the fight is not between farmers and herders but a plot to grab the fertile Benue land.
It should also be noted that the authorities’ persistent failure to hold suspected perpetrators to account is fueling a cycle of impunity that is making everyone feel unsafe.
Lastly, establishment of state police must be encouraged as a lasting solution to the insecurity in the state.
