Benue State has not known peace since January this year due to incessant killings mostly blamed on herdsmen. Just when we thought the worst was behind us, a heinous, evil and very vile attack was unleashed on another Benue community on Tuesday last week. Gunmen stormed St. Ignatius Catholic Church, Ukpor-Mbalom Parish in Gwer East Local Government Area during early morning mass. They killed nineteen persons including the two priests that were officiating at the mass. Four days before this attack, gunmen also killed ten people in Guma Local Government Area. That attack too was preceded by another one at Naka in Gwer West Local Government, where 300 houses were said to have been destroyed. Unlike the other attacks which were blamed on herdsmen, the latter was alleged to have been carried out by security agents.
These unending killings in Benue State, despite repeated pledges by political leaders and despite efforts made by the police and the military, have rendered the northern parts of the state totally unsafe for residents and have caused grief and anger all over the state and across the country. Beyond rushing in with some mobile police squadrons whenever killings occur, it is time for the Presidency to concentrate national security attention on northern Benue and southern Nasarawa states and bring these incessant killings to an end.
The killings must end before authorities and community leaders can sit down and work out a permanent solution to the farmers/herders competition for land resources.
President Muhammadu Buhari responded to the recent attacks by saying they were the work of evil doers who do not wish the country well. He advised the people of Benue not to fall into their trap. That indeed happened when Tiv youths reportedly attacked and killed people of Hausa origin in Makurdi, the state capital. Although the police and the state government downplayed the episode, Sarkin Hausawa of Benue said eight people were killed and eleven were missing after Tiv youths attacked them. Obviously, this was the worst response to the incessant attacks and it threatens to create confusion beyond the borders of Benue.
Even though community leaders’ anger is understandable, we frown at the choice of words of some religious leaders in the attacks’ wake. Director of Communications, Catholic Diocese of Makurdi, Father Moses Iorapuun claimed that “It has been the goal of the Jihadists to conquer Benue and Tiv people who resisted their advance into the Middle Belt and the Eastern part of Nigeria since 1804… The Muslim North is enjoying a sweet revenge overshadowed by an insensitive regime.” This false assertion of a jihadist agenda and the allegation that all far Northerners are complicit in the Benue attacks is ungodly, vile and treasonable.
The Senate and House of Representatives have summoned President Muhammadu Buhari to address a joint session on this matter. One of the issues he should address is the oft-alleged regional and religious lopsidedness in the appointment of heads of security agencies.
That ill-advised action is now fuelling the false Jihadist theory. President of Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria [CBCN] Archbishop Augustine Akubeze called on Buhari to resign from office and said, “For over two years now, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference…has consistently asked the President to rethink the configuration of his security apparatus and strategy…We have expressed our lack of confidence in the security agencies, which the President has deliberately placed in the hands of the adherents of only one religion.”
It is a serious administrative and political mistake that, in the wake of the Benue killings, now serves as a ready tool for trouble makers to threaten the foundations of national unity and cohesion.
