“Enough Is Enough”: Atiku’s Rallying Cry
Atiku Abubakar, former Vice‑President and presidential hopeful, has issued a blistering indictment of President Bola Tinubu’s government, declaring: “Benue Cannot Bleed in Silence.”
The PDP chieftain’s statement paints a harrowing tableau of daily carnage in Benue State—families burying loved ones, villages razed, and communities traumatised—while the corridors of power remain eerily silent.
Atiku demands the most basic constitutional guarantee: the right to life and the state’s duty to protect it. Yet, instead of decisive action, peaceful protesters are met with tear gas, baton charges and contempt.
“To unleash force on grieving, defenceless citizens is not governance, it is cruelty,” he thundered, accusing the administration of pouring “hot oil on an open wound.”
A History Written in Blood
The violence that now engulfs Benue is nothing new. Between January 2023 and February 2024 alone, Amnesty International documented 2,800 fatalities in farmer‑herder clashes, with over 235 attacks ravaging more than 50 communities and displacing over 12,000 people in a single year.
Long before the current crisis, between 2013 and 2018, Benue recorded 1,572 deaths in six years, a grim record substantiated by fieldwork data, peaking at 612 killings in 2016—nearly 39 percent of cumulative fatalities over that period.
These statistics underscore a decades‑long failure to address the underlying drivers of conflict—climate‑induced pasture scarcity, competition for arable land and the fragmentation of traditional grazing routes.
Discrepancies and Denials
Official figures often starkly underreport the carnage. A recent AP report confirmed over 100 deaths in a single weekend attack in Guma’s Yelewata community, where victims were reportedly burned alive, yet police sources withheld numbers.
Similarly, local councils tallied 42 fatalities in late May, while security agencies reluctantly conceded only a fraction of that toll.
These gaps fuel suspicions of a cover‑up, as the administration downplays the scale of brutality and the culpability of its security apparatus.
PDP’s Stark Accusations
On 16 June 2025, the PDP unleashed a scathing press release, blaming President Tinubu’s “lethargic approach” and alleged APC complicity for the massacre of over 200 Nigerians, including children, in coordinated terrorist and bandit raids.
Worse still, the party claims some 600,000 deaths nationwide over two years—a figure that dwarfs all available data and strains credulity.
By contrast, ACLED records fewer than 3,000 fatalities in Benue since 2005, and 8,343 nationwide from 2005 to 2021.
The PDP’s hyperbole may galvanise outrage, but it risks undermining legitimate calls for justice.
Anatomy of Government Failure
Tinubu’s administration, now two years into power, has repeatedly promised security “reforms”—military restructuring, enhanced intelligence sharing and digital surveillance.
Yet attacks have proliferated from Benue to Plateau, Zamfara and Kaduna, leaving the Middle Belt a patchwork of bloodstained ruins.
Instead of boots on the ground, communities see VIP motorcades and photo‑ops; instead of early‑warning systems, they face trigger‑happy riot squads.
The result: civilians caught in a deadly pincer between marauding killers and state violence.
Voices from the Frontline
In Makurdi, displaced farmers recount nights spent hiding under rubber trees, listening to distant screams. In Agatu LGA, mothers gather in impromptu camps, stitching prayer flags for lost sons.
Their demand is not political theatre but survival: “We want to farm without slaughter, to raise our children without fear.”
When they protest, the tear gas canisters fall like raindrops on open wounds. Their cry is echoed by human rights defenders and church leaders who warn that Nigeria’s moral capital is bleeding away.
The Call to Conscience
Atiku and the PDP insist this is a “call to conscience” for every federal and state leader: cease the indifference, deploy security assets where they matter, and engage with communities to craft context‑specific protection plans.
They urge public pressure—street protests, social‑media campaigns and legal actions—to compel accountability.
“History will not be kind to those who chose power over people,” Atiku warns.
From Local to National: A Wider Crisis
Benue’s bloodletting is the vanguard of a nationwide crisis. Plateau farmers are equally imperilled; Zamfara villagers endure daily raids; Taraba communities watch their farmlands burn.
Together, these theatres account for thousands of deaths and millions displaced, threatening Nigeria’s food security and stoking ethnic and religious tensions that could spin out of control.
Recommendations and the Road Ahead
To break the cycle, experts recommend:
- Full enforcement of anti‑open grazing laws and regional grazing reserves.
- Community policing structures integrated with federal intelligence.
- Climate‑smart agricultural programmes to reduce pasture pressure.
- Transparent casualty reporting mechanisms to build public trust.
- Cross‑party security summits to depoliticise the crisis.
Without urgent implementation, Benue’s bleeding will become Nigeria’s bleeding—an indictment of a state that forgot its first duty: to safeguard the lives of its citizens.
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