Punch Editorial Board
The alarm raised by residents of Yonov, Tomboe, Turan and Nenzev in the Logo Local Government Area of Benue over the invasion of their communities last week by suspected Fulani herdsmen is a reminder of the continued bloodletting in the North-Central state. Reports pour in almost daily of killings, destruction of farms and buildings, and the eviction of residents from their homeland. The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), should climb down from his detached stance and move to stop the bloodbath.
Joseph Anawah, a community leader and former media aide to an ex-governor of the state (Gabriel Suswam), said the influx posed a serious threat to neighbouring communities in the Buruku and Guma LGAs. Panicky residents of the affected communities fled to safer areas, claiming that the invaders were very hostile and had discouraged anyone from coming close to them. This was confirmed by the head of the Mbaifu community, Gbamga Nengem, who visited the settlement to ascertain the mission of the herdsmen. According to Nengem, the unwanted visitors told him emphatically that they had come to settle permanently in the area.
Chillingly, they warned that any attempt to evict them, either by the community or by government agencies, would invoke their anger and they would be left with no option but to resort to physical and open confrontation. Going by their recent and ongoing bloody campaign against communities across the North-Central region, the threat should be taken seriously. The security agencies should be on high alert.
This testimony of the community leaders, if true, lends credence to the belief in certain quarters that the objective of the herders goes beyond finding food and water for their animals; allegations that they are out to annex and seize indigenous people’s ancestral land and dominate them appear to be borne out daily by their violent ravages. In Benue and other parts of the region, their attacks, killings, arson and pillage are usually followed by occupation after the hapless inhabitants are evicted.
Something should be done and fast. The chairmen of 14 LGAs in the state said in November 2021 that between 2018 and 2021, 1,773 persons were killed in attacks by armed herders/militants. The state Governor, Samuel Ortom, put the figure of dead at thousands, including 100 security personnel.
The situation reflects the sad reality of Nigeria’s distorted federalism and the helplessness of state governors. Though labelled “chief security officers” of their states, they are actually mere figureheads in the area of security, who have no coercive means to maintain the security of their people. In Benue, the central government that has a constitutional monopoly over the security agencies, is at loggerheads with the state government, thereby making the needed collaboration to stop the insecurity fraught.
The state, in recent times, has been turned into a killing field with Fulani herdsmen fingered mainly as the bloodthirsty aggressors. Fulani organisations in turn allege that their cattle and herders are attacked and killed by locals. Five persons were killed last month in renewed attacks by suspected herdsmen in two separate incidents in some communities in the Gwer West LGA of the state.
Another attack was reported at Tse-Udeghe in the Mbapa Council Ward of the LGA as gunmen invaded the community in their numbers. On the same day around 7pm, gunmen, also suspected to be herdsmen, laid in ambush on the Naka/ Makurdi highway at Ahumen and shot at a moving bus, killing one of the passengers. In May 2021, over 100 persons were reported killed and many others rendered homeless in an attack by armed herders in four wards of Yoyo, Utang, Mbatyu/Mberev and Mbayongo in the Katsina Ala LGA of the state.
Perhaps, the single most devastating attack in the state occurred on New Year’s Day in 2018, when 73 persons were massacred by suspected Fulani militia in Logo and Guma LGAs. That incident drew global outrage and forced the reticent Buhari to belatedly visit the state. But his disclosure that he had directed the then Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to move to the state and take over the security situation, but that he only stayed one night in Benue before moving to a neighbouring state, alarmed Nigerians. There was no record of any punishment for the errant IG. This reinforced the suspicions that senior regime functionaries are sympathetic to the marauders on the grounds of ethnic solidarity.
Benue must be secured. Apart from the responsibility to protect lives and property, criminality should not go unpunished. Killers and arsonists should be apprehended and prosecuted. The cost in human lives is unacceptable. So is the economic cost as farming, travel and commerce have been disrupted in the state.
The impact reverberates far beyond its borders. Benue is a major supplier of farm produce and has been described as one of the food baskets of the country; but the attacks have prevented farmers from carrying on with their traditional occupation of producing among others, yams, cassava, sweet potatoes, oranges, groundnuts, and rice and this is reflected in the rising prices of foodstuffs nationwide. Some 70 percent of the state’s working population is engaged in agriculture.
Schooling has been disrupted in parts of the state, while roads have been rendered impassable. The Global Terrorism Index has named the Fulani herders the fourth deadliest terrorist group in the world because of their brutal killings, especially in Benue and neighbouring Plateau State.
The passage of the anti-open grazing law by the state government, its insistence on its implementation, and the flagrant disregard for a validly enacted law by herdsmen and their cohorts have been fuelling the conflict.
Ortom should set up strong vigilante groups across the state and arm them. He should work with the governors of neighbouring states such as Plateau, Taraba, Nasarawa and Kogi where herdsmen are also staging attacks. Apart from a region-wide security system, they need to join forces with other regions to actualise an immediate constitution amendment to facilitate state police.