The Benue Genocide

 By Nick Dazang  

Before now, and for reasons best known to him, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had preferred either to delegate or outsource his hallowed duties as the country’s Commander-in-Chief and Mourner-in-Chief to his minions. His minions, thus invested with presidential power, instead of showing compassion and fellow-feeling to their compatriots, carry on with haughtiness and uncommon superciliousness. Either they talk down at their bereaved hosts, who are reeling under the irreparable losses occasioned by the dastardly attacks visited on them or they snub critical stakeholders outright.

This arrogant pattern of behaviour has continued, ad nauseam, until last week’s engagement by President Tinubu with stakeholders in Makurdi, following the genocidal killings that took place at Yelewata in Guma Local Government Area of Benue State.

Even this engagement, the first since President Tinubu assumed office two years ago, and in spite of similar genocidal killings across a number of states in the North-Central geopolitical zone, was compelled by local and international outrage at the series of heinous and incessant killings in Benue State. Grudging as the President’s engagement with stakeholders in Makurdi may seem, we must thank God that it took place at all.

The President directed, at the said engagement, as he did shortly after the atrocious killings in Mangu Local Government Area of Plateau State two years ago, that the perpetrators be immediately apprehended. But we all know, and it is a notorious fact, that nothing came out of the President’s order. It was pointedly ignored. This writer’s surmise, and he stands to be contradicted, is that even this latest order will be benignly ignored. This is because, as we have seen in the past ten years, there have been no consequences for those who should, at best,  pre-empt these heinous crimes or who should, at worst, apprehend their mendacious perpetrators. In a situation where perpetrators of heinous crimes are treated, either with levity or allowed to go scot-free, there will, inexorably be impunity and re-occurrence(s).

But  what is important is the President’s expression of dismay and bewilderment at the serial and genocidal killings in Benue State, and by extension, the states adjoining it. “How come no one has been arrested for committing this heinous crime in Yelewata? Inspector General of Police where are the arrests?” the President queried.

This query must resonate with all Nigerians, and especially with those who have been at the receiving end of these bestialities. How come, from Mangu, Bokkos, Bassa, Riyom, and now Yelewata, these hideous killers mow down vulnerable farmers, with abandon, and then disappear, without a trace, and into thin air? How come nary a terrorist is/was apprehended, tried in a court of competent jurisdiction and punished to the full extent of the law? 

In these circumstances, reasonable and right-thinking people would be compelled to assume that either our security agencies are inept or that they are simply overwhelmed. But these assumptions do not agree with the recent pushback that Boko Haram and ISWAP are receiving from the valiant, joint efforts of the Army and the Air Force in the North-East. Neither do they agree with a pedigree steeped in professionalism. This then suggests that there may be a lacuna and a disconnect. And this gap may be informed by inadequacy of actionable intelligence. Whatever may have informed this obvious failure, in a serious jurisdiction or clime where people suffer twinges of conscience, and where people respect their exalted offices, uniforms and laurels, someone would have have shown contrition. He would have put up a resignation.

But far more significant, and this has reinforced and fortified this writer’s conjectures, captured in previous treatises, is the weighty pronouncement of the Chairman of the Benue State Traditional Council, Tor Tiv, Orchivirigh, Professor James Ayatse. He had said at the engagement: “Excellency, it is not herder-farmer clashes. It is not communal clashes. It is not reprisal attacks or skirmishes. What we are dealing with here in Benue is a calculated, well-planned, full-scale, genocidal invasion and land-grabbing campaign by herder-terrorists and bandits”. This writer, while admitting that communal clashes, in time past, defined some states in the North-Central geopolitical zone, the recent attacks go beyond the pale of farmer-herder clashes. This is buttressed by their scale, stealth, martial efficiency, co-ordination and their unsurpassed brutality.

In fact, until recently, when the Defense Headquarters admitted that these attacks were perpetrated by marauders whose accents betrayed them as non-Nigerians, our security agencies had laboured under the misconception that they were tit-for-tat herder-farmer clashes. This narrative was latched upon, by mischief makers, to pull the wool over the faces of unsuspecting Nigerians. However, communities who are at the receiving end, who bear the brunt, and who are seldom allowed to vent themselves, know better.

Unfortunately, and for reasons best known to them, some of the President’s minions are content with being driven by this narrow, obtuse and misguided narrative. One suspects, too, that this is the dummy they may have sold to the Presidency, hence our running in circles over these heinous attacks. Now that we have a better appreciation of the challenge, our security agencies will do well to  change their mind-sets and cast their nets wide and further afield. 

What are the strategies of these terrorists? Why are they nimble, changing their trajectories at whim, coming in, and visiting their dastardly attacks without as much as leaving any trace(s)? Who are their sponsors? What is their disposition? What are their logistics? And rather than disdain the communities that have been at the receiving end of these mindless attacks, the security agencies must work with them. They must earn their trust. Our security agencies must win the hearts and minds of these communities if the war on terror is to be won.

*Dazang, a public affairs analyst, wrote from Abuja