Benue State, once the lush green jewel of Nigeria’s Middle Belt, is bleeding out in plain sight. And yet, somehow, so many eyes remain shut, so many ears closed. This is not the aftermath of a natural disaster. It is not a war declared by sovereign nations. It is the slow, systematic extermination of a people by silence, neglect, and cold indifference. A genocide with no hashtags. A crisis without urgency.
In the last year alone, over 2,600 souls were wiped off the face of the earth in Benue. They weren’t soldiers or insurgents. They were mothers pounding yams, children chasing kites in red-earth courtyards, fathers tilling ancestral soil. Now they are ghosts. Their names barely whispered, their memories fading with each passing headline that never comes.
From January 2023 to February 2024, more than 50 communities were overrun. And this wasn’t chaos. It was choreography. A deliberate, unrelenting assault by armed herdsmen. Not random. Not isolated. But a calculated blueprint of terror. Eighteen out of twenty-three local government areas now sit under siege. This is not “clashes.” This is occupation.
Benue is not just losing people. It is losing memory. Identity. Roots.
Over 2.1 million people are now internally displaced. That figure eclipses the numbers at the peak of Boko Haram’s terror in the northeast. But where is the outrage? Where are the breaking news banners? Where are the international observers, the emergency summits, the sanctioned condemnations? Where are the vigils, the solidarity tweets, the ribbons, the global noise?
Silence.
In the displacement camps dotting Makurdi and beyond, children don’t dream of becoming doctors. They dream of sleeping without gunfire. Babies take their first steps in tarpaulin shelters and bare sanded floors, not knowing the texture of home. Young girls fetch water from muddy streams and pray they aren’t snatched before sundown. These are not temporary shelters. They are open-air graves for dignity.
And the farms, the heartbeat of Benue, the Food Basket of the Nation, lie abandoned. Fields once bursting with yam, cassava, maize, and citrus are now either fallow or occupied by terror. Entire economies have collapsed. Harvests missed. Planting seasons skipped. Hunger, both literal and spiritual, has become the norm. In Guma, Agatu, Logo, and Gwer West, famine isn’t looming. It’s already seated at the table.
This isn’t just a humanitarian crisis. It is cultural homicide.
The Benue State government has responded with an ambitious five-year, 853 billion naira plan for rebuilding and reintegration. It is commendable. It is necessary. But it is not enough. Because what good is rebuilding if the foundation is fear? What good are houses when they are haunted by the memories of slain toddlers? What good are roads when they lead to gravesites?
Reconstruction must begin with security. Not the performative kind. Not statements at press briefings. But real protection. Justice that names names. Justice that bites. Until then, these plans are blueprints on paper, not salvation.
And where is the federal government in all this? Where is the moral courage to say: enough is enough? Why has the response been lukewarm, procedural, buried in bureaucracy and politics? Why is Benue’s agony not urgent? Why are the tears of Tiv and Idoma children diluted in national amnesia?
Benue doesn’t want your pity. Pity is shallow. Benue wants your rage. Your solidarity. Your action.
This is not about geography. It is about humanity. About the sacred right to live, to plant, to worship, to sleep without fearing fire at midnight. About justice for the grandmother burned alive in Tse-Abwa. For the baby buried hastily in Tse-Jokwe. For the teenagers who have never known a life outside a camp fence.
This is a mirror held up to our collective failure. Every moment we look away, we say with our silence: their lives don’t matter.
To the international community, if this were Kyiv or Gaza, there would be convoys, coverage, and consequences. But this is Makurdi. This is Otukpo. This is Nigeria. And apparently, that means it can bleed in peace.
To the Nigerian government, do not govern over graves. There is no glory in ruling ruins. Benue is not disposable. Its people are not collateral damage in the politics of power. Protect them.
To Nigerians everywhere, today it is Benue. Tomorrow, who knows? Injustice has no borders. Silence is a virus. It spreads.
This is a call to the human spirit. To conscience. To courage. To compassion. Speak. Act. Demand. Don’t wait for history to absolve you. It won’t.
Benue is bleeding.
Will you look away again?
Stephanie Shaakaa
University of Agriculture, Makurdi,
Benue State.
