In a chilling escalation of Benue State’s security woes, Aondoakaa Yaiyol, former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chairman of Tarka Local Government and the Commander of the Nigeria Hunters and Forest Security Services (NHFSS), was gruesomely assassinated on Friday night by gunmen who stormed his residence on a motorcycle.
The ambush was not random—it was cold-blooded, calculated, and executed with disturbing precision.
According to multiple eyewitness accounts and official confirmations, the attackers fired at close range before escaping under the cover of sporadic gunfire, aided by two escorting vehicles that fired indiscriminately to instil terror and ensure impunity.
This brazen act follows the unresolved murder of Yaiyol’s wife last year in strikingly similar fashion—an incident that also saw their home razed to ashes.
Security experts have raised urgent questions about the capacity of the Nigeria Police and local vigilante forces, especially as Yaiyol’s killers reportedly have links to a convicted criminal who recently returned from prison.
It has now emerged that a vendetta may have been simmering between the two men. But the absence of proactive protection for a known target, especially someone holding an official paramilitary role in community defence, raises deeper concerns.
Benue State—long besieged by herdsmen attacks, rural banditry, and political assassinations—seems to be descending into an abyss of lawlessness.
This latest murder reaffirms the disturbing pattern of targeted killings in Nigeria’s Middle Belt, where community leaders and local security heads are routinely eliminated with little or no justice served.
Chief Joseph Har, Governor Hyacinth Alia’s Security Adviser, labelled the killing an “assassination.”
His confirmation, coupled with the police’s belated response, further paints a dire picture of a broken security apparatus struggling to keep pace with emboldened killers.
This tragedy must serve as a wake-up call to the Federal Government and security agencies: community defenders like Yaiyol are Nigeria’s last line of rural defence.
If they are not safe, then no Nigerian is. The silence of Abuja is deafening. Justice delayed in this case may well signal justice denied for hundreds of silent victims across Benue.
Atlantic Post writer Peter Jene contributed to this report.
