The Benue Massacres and Nigeria’s Endless Failure to Protect Its People

Once again, Benue is drenched in blood. On Saturday, June 15, 2025, yet another massacre unfolded in Yelwata, in the Guma Local Government Area, leaving no fewer than 200 people dead. Dozens more were injured, and families were torn apart.

For many Nigerians, this is just another grim headline in the endless stream of violence plaguing the country. But for those who live in Benue, it is a recurring nightmare. Homes have been razed. Children orphaned. Breadwinners slaughtered. The cries for help, for justice, for protection, echo into a void where a state should have stood tall.

What is happening in Benue is not a security challenge—it is a humanitarian tragedy of national proportions. And yet, year after year, the government continues to respond with silence, empty condolences, and recycled promises. The attacks follow a now-familiar script: armed men descend on villages in the dead of night or broad daylight, kill indiscriminately, destroy livelihoods, and vanish without consequence. Security agencies arrive too late, if at all. Officials issue routine statements, commissions are set up, and then it all fades—until it happens again.

It is impossible to escape the feeling that Nigeria has failed its most vulnerable citizens. The people of Benue have become collateral damage in a country that seems increasingly unable—or unwilling—to uphold its most basic constitutional duty: to protect life and property. For a nation that prides itself on being the giant of Africa, it is shameful that farmers cannot go to their fields without fear of being slaughtered, that children must sleep in the bush to avoid being killed in their beds, that widows and orphans now outnumber the living in many rural communities.

Every corpse buried in Benue is not just a symbol of state failure—it is a searing indictment of our collective indifference. The victims are not statistics. They had names. They had dreams. They had hopes for harvests that will now never come. The normalization of these killings speaks volumes about the worth we assign to human life in Nigeria, especially when that life exists far from the centers of power, wealth, or media attention.

The silence from Abuja is both deafening and disturbing. Where is the outrage? Where is the decisive action? Why is Benue always mourning and never healing? There have been no national days of mourning for these victims, no state burials, no flags flown at half-mast. When urban centers face security threats, the state responds with force. But when rural Benue bleeds, it is met with token deployments, hasty press releases, and a policy of denial.

This is not just a Benue problem—it is a Nigerian crisis. It is a symptom of a decaying national fabric in which violence spreads like wildfire, unchecked and underreported. From Sokoto to Enugu, Zamfara to Plateau, insecurity has become the most reliable feature of our federation. If farmers in Benue can be murdered with impunity, then no part of this country is truly safe. There is a growing sense that the Nigerian state no longer holds a monopoly on violence, and in its absence, terror flourishes.

The political class bears much of the blame. Too many of our leaders are content to treat these tragedies as seasonal inconveniences rather than systemic failures. The killings rarely feature in campaign speeches, policy debates, or budgetary priorities. How can a country move forward when parts of it are permanently under siege, when children grow up knowing the sound of gunfire better than the sound of a school bell?

There must be a national reckoning. Security reform is not optional—it is urgent. There must be investment in intelligence gathering, in community policing, in rural security networks that do not wait for orders from faraway Abuja before taking action. More importantly, there must be political will. The government must treat this as a war against innocent Nigerians and act accordingly—with force, with resolve, and with humanity.

Civil society must also rise to the moment. Faith leaders must break their silence and call out injustice wherever it festers. The media must resist the fatigue of repetition and shine light on every atrocity. Citizens must begin to demand answers and accountability, not just during elections but every day. We can no longer afford to be numb. We must not become a country where the earth drinks blood so often that it forgets the taste of rain.

Benue has wept long enough. Its people have buried too many. The soil is soaked, not with harvest, but with horror. If this nation still has a soul, if its leaders still have any claim to legitimacy, then this cycle of death must end. Not with another promise. Not with another headline. But with justice, protection, and the assurance that no Nigerian, no matter how poor or remote, should ever be left to die in silence.

Let us not wait for another mass grave to ask what went wrong. We already know. The question now is: what will we do about it?