By Prof. Mike Ozekhome, SAN
INTRODUCTION
Yelwata in Benue state has been drenched in blood. Last October, I launched 50 books at the same time in Abuja to mark my birthday. One of the books is titled “Blood on the Niger and Benue: Nigeria’s Grim Insecurity Situation”. Everything said in that book has just bee reenacted in Yelwata, Benue State.
In the quiet hours of Friday night, June 13, 2025, the farming village of Yelwata in Guma Local Government Area of Benue State lay cloaked in the familiar darkness of rural Nigeria. There was no forewarning, no alarm. Only sleep. Then, like a storm without thunder, horror descended.
Armed men, suspected to be killer Fulani terrorist herders, emerged from the shadows and set upon the defenceless community with brutal precision. For more than two hours, they maimed, slaughtered, burned and razed. By the time the sun rose on Saturday morning, the landscape had transformed into a grotesque tapestry of charred ruins, still-smouldering debris and lifeless bodies sprawled across crimson soil. Over 200 people were reportedly confirmed dead at the scene and the toll would rise in the days that followed, with some reports placing the number of victims at over 300. Among the dead were children, pregnant women and elderly farmers, civilians caught in the indiscriminate cruelty of a calculated massacre. I most unequivocally condemn this horror, this man’s inhumanity to man. It must never happen again. NEVER!
Witnesses recounted how petrol was doused on thatched homes before they were set ablaze. Whole families perished in their sleep, trapped by flames and collapsing roofs. The night echoed with the crackling of the burning and the screams of the wounded and the orphaned. Survivors stumbled through the darkness, scorched and bleeding, in search of refuge. At the Benue State University Teaching Hospital in Makurdi, doctors worked frantically, overwhelmed by the influx of casualties. Medical personnel issued urgent calls for blood donations as the wards filled with the critically injured, many clinging to life with little more than hope.
In a land where yam festivals should flourish, the earth has instead flourished with drunk blood. A serene and prosperous village, producing large quantity of food is now a ghost community, no thanks to deadly attacks by killer herdsmen, who pose as innocent cattle rearers.
A PEOPLE LEFT FOR DEAD: THE HUMAN TOLL
What occurred in Yelwata cannot be dismissed as a “clash,” nor cloaked in the diplomatic cowardice of euphemisms that seek to sanitize horror. This was not a skirmish. It was not a misunderstanding. It was a massacre! A premeditated act of mass violence, executed with recklessness and impunity against a defenceless civilian population, in total defiance of laws and moral conscience. The people of Yelwata have become mourners in their own homeland, dressed in black, forever gathering the bones of the innocent. The village has been painted over with the sorrow of the grieving and the brushstrokes of trauma.
Among the victims was the family of Michael Ajah, a survivor now left hollowed by grief. Ajah lost twenty members of his family in a single night! Eleven perished in one house. Eight were killed in another. The others died in the chaos, scattered across a village that now exists only in ashes. His stores were burnt. His home was destroyed. Standing barefoot in the ruins, he described how he escaped only with the clothes on his back. “This is the only thing that I have now,” he said. “There is nothing else with me.” Bature Bartholomew, Joseph Kwagh and countless others suffered a similar fate.
Apparently, prior threats had been made, as they often are, but villagers had grown used to such messages. The community had seen warnings before. And in the past, some security forces had pushed back similar threats. The villagers believed it would be the same this time. They likened it to the story of the crying wolf. They were wrong.
Let the world hear it: the peaceful people of Yelwata were not victims of chance. They were targeted. They were hunted. And they were massacred.
DEAFENING SILENCE AND DEADLY INACTION BY GOVERNMENT
The massacre in Yelwata is not just a story of blood and loss. It is a harrowing indictment of leadership failure, systemic neglect and institutional cowardice. In the face of rising tensions and repeated warnings, those entrusted with the security of Benue State and Nigeria at large chose silence. Security forces knew the fragility of peace in Yelwata. They were not blind to the pattern. From Guma to Agatu, Logo to Turan, the script has played out over and over: villages burnt, families erased, justice deferred. Yet, no preventive measures were taken. No fortified presence. No aerial surveillance. Only the eerie stillness of a nation too used to the scent of scorched earth.
When the killers struck again, it was not a surprise. It was an inevitability made possible by deafening silence and deadly inaction. The people of Benue have cried themselves hoarse, year after year, massacre after massacre. But their grief has been met with bureaucratic apathy and public relations condolences. Governor Hyacinth Alia’s response to the massacre was not merely inadequate; it was an affront. His delay in visiting the scene, his refusal to speak, tweet, or even mourn publicly until after President Tinubu’s very belated visit, has been interpreted not just as incompetence but as possible complicity. In the face of over 200 dead, the Governor offered the nation a figure of 59, thus inimizing the scale of bloodshed and insulting the graves of the murdered. What even if it were one? Instead of naming the perpetrators, he set up an investigative panel that tactfully avoided attributing blame, as if the truth was inconvenient, as if justice might provoke too much discomfort.
When President Tinubu finally arrived in Benue, the expectations of a grieving people were clear: solidarity, seriousness, swift action and restitution. What they received instead was a grotesque display of political theatre. Placards bearing the President’s image lined the roads. Schoolchildren, soaked and shivering, were forced to line the streets under a heavy downpour, waving soggy banners while mass graves still steamed in the earth nearby. What should have been a moment of solemnity turned into an unofficial 2027 re-election rally, a tasteless spectacle that traded the blood of Yelwata for photo ops. This was not condolence. This was campaign optics.
This playbook is not new. On New Year’s Day in 2017, over 200 people were slaughtered in Benue for resisting the destruction of their crops by cattle. On December 25th, 2024, as Christians marked the birth of Jesus Christ, suspected armed herders invaded Ityuluv, Tse Azege and Innyiev Ya in Kwande Local Government, killing eleven people mid-celebration. The images are consistent: corpses laid out under church roofs, burning homes, the wails of mothers who will never again hold their children. Yet from the corridors of power, the same recycled rhetoric flows: “We condemn,” “We are investigating,” “We urge calm.” But no arrests. No convictions. No justice. Just the thud of fresh bodies hitting the ground.
Even the words of comfort are now hollow. President Tinubu’s lamentations, “Enough is enough… perpetrators must be arrested… communities must dialogue”, ring with irony. Dialogue with whom? With the men who crept through the rain to burn babies alive? With those who hacked entire bloodlines to death because they were asked not to graze on people’s farmland? Dialogue implies equal grievance. This is not war. This is terrorism. Pure and simple. And to place dialogue and reconciliation above accountability is to trample on the memory of the dead.
Dr. Daudu Ayu of Yelwata captured the fury of a betrayed people when he denounced the President’s framing of the massacre as a “conflict between warring communities.” There is no parity here. The Fulani attackers were not defending; they were invading. Their aim was clear: seize ancestral lands, decimate indigenous populations and spread fear as a weapon of conquest. To reduce this to “herder-farmer clashes” is to excuse genocide with semantics.
The numbers are staggering. Since 2009, Nigeria has lost millions of lives to insurgency and herder-farmer violence. Benue alone has absorbed blow after blow, turning its farmlands into open graveyards. The government’s failure to act, its refusal to label this terrorism for what it is, has emboldened the killers. Why would they stop when they face no consequence? Why retreat when their path is cleared by political hesitation and legal paralysis?
President Tinubu’s muted outrage and calculated ambiguity do not typify exemplary leadership. They are avoidance wrapped in grammar. His failure to draw a red line, to name the aggressors, to galvanize decisive military action, makes his ambition for a second term in 2027 more than politically distasteful; it makes it morally flawed. How do you govern the living if you preside over the slaughter of the forgotten?
Each delayed response, each muted condemnation, adds one more body to the pile. For years, as statistics ballooned into genocidal proportions, the government sermonized from podiums while the fields of Benue ran red. This latest atrocity in Yelwata is not the beginning of the story, but it must be the final warning. Because if Nigeria cannot protect its citizens, if the Constitution’s promise of security and welfare is conditional on tribe, location, or silence, then it is not a nation; it is a lie, a scam.
Enough, please. Condolences do not resurrect the dead. Nor do photo-ops rebuild homes. The people of Yelwata need more than pity; they demand justice. And if this government cannot deliver it, then it must step aside for one that will. The land of yams is now the land of tombs. And history will remember who stood up and who stood back while it all burned.
TERROR HAS A NAME! CALL IT BY ITS NAME!!
According to Fr. Remigius Ihyula, a long-time witness to these cycles of violence and trauma in Benue State, this is a coordinated effort to wipe indigenous Christian communities off the map. “These Fulani militias are not just killing, they’re clearing land to claim it,” he stated in what should have been a national alarm bell. “And they’re being allowed to do it.”
The silence that follows such clarity is complicity. These attackers do not crawl out of caves. They cross state lines. Emboldened, equipped and unchallenged. From neighboring Nasarawa. Armed groups are said to find safe haven in Lafia, the state capital; yet successive Nasarawa governors have refused to act. Not out of ignorance, but from calculation. What kind of leadership turns its face away while death marches across its borders in open daylight? What kind of democracy tolerates this level of carnage and calls itself whole?
And when the few voices brave enough to speak the truth rise, they are met with digital disinformation and diversion. Fr. Ihyula has strongly condemned attempts to scapegoat the Tiv people, refuting online rumors that Tiv militias orchestrated the massacre. “There were no Tiv fighters involved,” he said. “This is a deliberate attempt to muddy the truth and shield the real perpetrators.” In a country already fracturing under the weight of ethno-religious mistrust, such deflections are more than cowardly. They are dangerous.
David Onyillokwu Idah of the International Human Rights Commission gave name to what many have been too afraid to utter. “This is what the Nazis did to the Jews,” he warned. “It’s ethnic cleansing, step by step. First, they displace them. Then they come back and finish the job.” This is not sensationalism. It is a fact pattern. Entire villages emptied. Men and women slaughtered. Children hacked to pieces. Homes razed. Crops destroyed. Entire communities transformed into ghost towns with only ashes left to speak.
And where is the state? Where is the machinery of justice, the constitutional promise of safety, dignity and equal protection? Every law in Nigeria, beginning with the Constitution, affirms that the right to life is sacred. That the state has an inviolable duty to protect it. Yet in Yelwata, life was treated like expendable surplus. Background casualty in the theater of statecraft. Amnesty International has catalogued the horrors, calling attention to the government’s complete failure to stem the tide of violence. “Gunmen have been on a killing spree with utter impunity,” it reported, warning that the mass displacement of farmers would have ripple effects on food security and economic stability. Their statement, clinical yet urgent, highlighted not only a humanitarian disaster but also the erosion of constitutional order. “Without immediate action, many more lives may be lost.” The question is: does the government intend to act, or merely wait until there are no more villages left to bury?
POLICY OR HUMANITY FAILURE
What occurred in Yelwata is not only a breach of human dignity. It is a breach of law, of the very fabric that claims to hold Nigeria together. These are not mere attacks; they are crimes against humanity. Under international law, under the Rome Statute to which Nigeria is a signatory, a systematic attack directed against a civilian population qualifies as such. Ethnic cleansing, political protection of armed militias and the use of displacement as a weapon, all point towards a dangerous descent Nigeria cannot afford. This is not just Yelwata’s burden. This is a national stain.
The issue is no longer one of mere policy failure. It is a test of our collective humanity. It is the measure of whether we, as a people, as a nation under law, believe rural Nigerian lives matter. Because every time a tactical unit is deployed after the massacre, every time officials show up after the mass burial, every time condolences are uttered while killers remain nameless and free—it tells the people of Yelwata that their blood is cheap. That their lives are expendable. That they are alone.
But the Constitution says otherwise. Section 14(2)(b) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), declares the security and welfare of the people to be the primary purpose of government. Section 33 guarantees the right to life. Section 34 guarantees the right to dignity. Yet in the fields of Yelwata, once alive with farming, festivals and laughter, there is now only ash, silence and death. These rights, on paper, are being buried beside the people they were meant to protect.
If Nigeria still believes in its own laws, in its own humanity, then Yelwata must not be forgotten. Their stories must outlive the silence. Their names must echo louder than the rain that hid the footsteps of their killers.
This is no longer a rural crisis. It is a national reckoning. And history is already watching.
FROM CRIES TO JUSTICE: WHAT MUST NOW BE DONE
The carnage in Yelwata, like so many before it, leaves behind more than scorched homes and mass graves. It leaves a nation at a crossroads. In the place of swift justice, we have seen a cycle of condolences without consequence. In the place of leadership, we have seen silence, sluggishness and in some quarters, chilling complicity. And so, once again, a grieving people are left to ask: must our cries be louder than gunfire before we are heard? Must the soil drink more blood before the state will act?
The Northern Senators Forum, in a rare and firm voice, echoed the frustration of a people brutalized beyond measure. Chairing the statement, Senator Abdulaziz Musa Yar’adua called upon President Tinubu to ensure that his visit to the ashes of Yelwata would not dissolve into a photo-op footnote. “What the people of Benue and indeed all Nigerians, deserve is lasting protection, not repeated mourning.” In a nation where impunity now travels in convoys, that statement carries the weight of a challenge, not a courtesy.
But lip service will no longer suffice. Nigerians are not beggars at the gate of justice. They are constitutional citizens entitled to life, dignity and safety. Yet these rights have been violated repeatedly in Benue State, a region that has endured more than its fair share of bloodletting. Rural communities have become theatres of unrelenting terror. Ungoverned spaces stalked by militias, abandoned by the state and forgotten by a government too slow to respond, too quick to excuse. Yelwata is but a metaphor of what goes on across the length and breadth of Nigeria.
This moment demands more than mourning. It demands reckoning. The Constitution empowers the President to declare a state of emergency where there is a serious breakdown of public order and a clear and present danger is presented. That threshold has long been crossed. As Sir Ifeanyi Ejiofor, Esq, rightly noted, what we are witnessing is not communal misunderstanding. It is a transnational siege. Militants from across the Cameroon border continue to pour in, slaughtering with impunity, while the federal and state governments grope in the dark of denial.
And where was the governor, the supposed shepherd of the people? Governor Hyacinth Alia, elected to protect lives, stood muted while bodies were piled. The faint whisper of his voice came days after, long after the wails of the bereaved had risen to the heavens, long after Pope Leo XIV. It is not enough to wear a cassock; one must wield courage. It is not enough to call for prayer; one must demand justice. And if political office now weighs heavier than his conscience can bear, perhaps the pulpit is where he truly belongs. The hood does not make the monk after all.
RECOMMENDATIONS
- Immediate Deployment of Adequate Security Forces
The first and immediate line of intervention must be the swift deployment of sufficient, well-trained and fully-equipped security personnel to the affected communities. But this cannot be business as usual. Our military and other security agencies must stop operating in separated silos. What we need is joint intelligence gathering, joint operations and joint accountability. Anything less is a betrayal of the people already left exposed and bleeding.
- Declaration of a State of Emergency in the Affected Areas
The Federal Government must now invoke its constitutional mandate under Section 305 of the 1999 Constitution to declare a targeted state of emergency in the devastated areas. This should not be done as a mere political gimmick like in Rivers State but as a constitutional necessity. Such a declaration would allow for a unified, coordinated and rapid security response, free from the red tape that has too often cost lives. It would restore public order, unlock emergency relief and send a powerful message, not just to the perpetrators, but to the bereaved that Nigeria has not entirely lost its soul.
- Establishment of a Judicial Commission of Inquiry
A robust, truly independent Judicial Commission of Inquiry must be established to thoroughly investigate these atrocities. It must dig deep; not just into who pulled the triggers, but into who enabled them, who funded them, who looked away. Justice must be more than ceremonial. It must be seen, heard and felt. Otherwise, we embolden the next set of killers.
- Government Assistance to Victims and Survivors
The dead must not be buried with the silence of the state. Survivors must not be left to wander with grief as their only companion. The government must offer immediate and sustained relief, medical care, shelter, financial assistance, food, clothes, relocation support and psychosocial services. Compassion must walk hand in hand with justice. Not as charity, but as a right.
- Tackling the Root Causes: Annexation and Occupation by the Fulani Herders; Poverty, Unemployment and Illiteracy
Peace is not built on military boots alone. It is built on dignity of the human person; opportunity and hope. The structural causes of this continuous violence must be tackled. First, the government must extirpate this sense of irredentist annexation and occupation of the land of the Natives all over Nigeria by fully armed Fulani herders. The grinding poverty, monumental unemployment and educational exclusion must be confronted and dealt with boldly. These are not background issues; they are the fuel that ignite the crises. A country that fails to invest in its people will eventually have to bury them.
- Inclusive Dialogue with Traditional Rulers and Community Leaders
Security is not the exclusive preserve of the state. It must be co-owned by the people. Traditional rulers, faith-based leaders, youth groups and local stakeholders must be at the table, not as spectators but as partners. Their voices carry legitimacy and their cooperation carries weight. The road to peace must pass through the hearts of the people who live there.
Nigeria must abandon the lie that some lives are worth more than others. Whether in Lagos or Yelwata, the right to life is not negotiable.
Justice must rise. Not as a whisper but as a national roar. For each charred body in Yelwata cries out; not for pity, but for prosecution. Not for platitudes, but for policy. Not for remembrance, but for reform. Let the government stop sermonizing and start securing. Let the Presidency remember that it was elected to protect, not to pontificate. And let the nation rise to say: enough. Not one more grave before we act. Not one more child buried before we move.
IF NOT NOW, WHEN?
I have decried this nightmare too many times. My voice is now hoarse from screaming into the void. And if I, one far removed from; a mere citizen and a conscience with pen and protest feel this ravaged, this worn, then what must be the state of mind of the grieving people of Yelwata, of Benue? What must it be to live in constant dread, to bury child after child, to rebuild only for fire to raze it again?
The people of Benue State deserve better. They deserve a government that does not look away, a system that does not delay and a nation that does not devalue their suffering. The Yelwata massacre was not just a tragic event. It was an indictment. A blistering exposure of governance gone cold and a security architecture collapsed under the weight of its own rot. It laid bare the double standards that govern Nigerian responses to violence: swifter when it affects the elite and sluggish, if not silent, when it happens in the farmlands of the forgotten.
This was not just a failure of one government. It was the betrayal of institutions. A brutal failure by Governor Hyacinth Alia, who watched from within the state without uttering a word while the ashes of his constituents cooled. A glaring failure by the Tinubu administration, that merely sent condolences before justice and optics before concrete action. A catastrophic failure by the Nigerian state itself, whose primary constitutional duty, to protect life and property, was abandoned the moment the first gunshots rang out in Yelwata.
This massacre cannot be allowed to happen again. Not under any guise. Not cloaked in politics. Not silenced by power. Not dulled by time.
We end not in quiet despair, but in thunderous resolve. This grief will not make us mute. This pain will not make us passive. The dead of Yelwata are not numbers to scroll past—they are names, families, futures. They are stories etched into our conscience.
And so we write and will monitor the implementation of our recommendations.
We will not stop until the soil of Yelwata no longer tastes of blood, but of justice. Until the lives lost become the spark for national reckoning. Until silence is replaced by outrage and condolences give way to action.
The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.
