Benue State Governor, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Iormem Alia, has firmly dismissed claims that the state is experiencing a religious or ethnic genocide, insisting that its ongoing security crises do not meet any United Nations criteria for genocide.
Speaking on Wednesday in Abuja during a consultative forum on protecting the rights of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and Forcibly Displaced Persons (FDPs), organised by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Governor Alia urged critics to “check the UN definition” before making such allegations.
“In my state of Benue, we don’t have any religious, ethnic, racial, national or state genocide,” he said. “Do we have insecurity? Yes, we do. But it is not a genocide.”
Alia, a Catholic priest-turned-governor, stressed that while Benue has faced deadly attacks for years, the violence is not aimed at any single faith or ethnic group. He also pushed back against claims of an ongoing jihadist takeover in Nigeria.
“We do not have any jihad in Nigeria,” he declared. “If there were any especially in my state I would have been the first to raise the alarm.”
His remarks come amid intensified global attention on allegations of targeted killings of Christians in Nigeria, an issue that gained momentum after the United States designated Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) under former President Donald Trump. The designation followed concerns over religiously motivated violence—claims the Nigerian government has repeatedly rejected.
A BBC investigation also reported that data used by U.S. officials to allege Christian genocide in Nigeria could not be independently verified.
Governor Alia revealed that he had recently engaged U.S. Embassy officials to correct what he described as misconceptions about Benue’s security situation. “I made it clear to the American ambassador that what we are experiencing does not fit the definition of genocide,” he said.
Benue has endured waves of violent attacks since 2009, with armed groups repeatedly targeting rural communities. Data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) shows that more than 800 people have been killed and nearly 400 abducted in Benue over the past two years.
One of the worst attacks occurred on June 14, when coordinated assaults in the Yelewata community of Guma Local Government Area left over 200 people dead.
Despite the staggering human toll, Governor Alia insists the violence though severe and ongoing does not amount to genocide under international law.
