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OPINION: The Genocide In Benue

Published

4 months ago

June 17, 2025

By Suyi Ayodele

I am naturally hemophobic; I run from blood. But I had to encourage myself to watch the videos of the killings in Yelwata town in Benue State on Friday night. The killings, which the locals said started around 10.45pm on Friday, lasted till 2.00 am on Saturday without any help coming the way of the helpless dwellers who were killed in their hundreds!

Benue is on the path to ‘genocidal annihilation’. You may have to pardon the specious tautology in this sentence. It is deliberate, and at the same time, the best way to convey the issues in today’s piece. This is necessary so that no one will be left in doubt about what we are talking about.

When a man feels the full impact of the percussion at the dance arena, he shows it by the folding of the two fists. My fists are folded today because in our very eyes, an ethnic group is on its way to extinction! Sadly enough, we appear helpless, or, to put it in its proper perspective: we are deliberately helpless to help the situation.

At the rate we are going, unless by deus ex machina, or the government wakes up from its deliberate slumber and acts, the entire Benue may go into extinction. Yet the people of Benue committed no crime. Sorry, I just remember, they are simply guilty of being Nigerians; minority Nigerians who are treated by those in power as expendable and dispensable entities! What is happening in Benue State is pure genocide, an annihilation in its raw form! This is completely sad!

The “Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Sixth Edition)”, defines the verb, ‘annihilate’ to mean: “Destroy largely or completely; blot out of existence.” When used figuratively, the same dictionary says the word means “Reduce to insignificance or powerlessness; silence or humiliate completely” (Pg 85).

The American historian and Professor of Eastern European Studies at Stanford University, California, USA, Norman Naimark, in a November 15, 2011, interview conducted by the British writer and editor, Alec Ash, spoke extensively about genocide. The dictionary under reference here defines ‘genocide as “The (attempted) deliberate and systematic extermination of an ethnic or national group” (Pg1092).

In the interview, Naimark posits that “Genocide isn’t the preserve of fanatics and racist thugs- it’s part of human nature.” And when asked to define genocide, he responds by saying: “I don’t think there is a “correct” definition of genocide. At the same time, the most useful way to think about it is to start with the December 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”

Then he goes ahead to state the provisions of Article Two of the 1948 UN Convention in relation to the definition of genocide to mean “acts intended to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, racial, ethnical, national, or religious group, as such”. Citing his 2010 book, “Stalin’s Genocide”, Naimark says that “social and political groups should be included in the definition” of genocide.

Naimark elaborates on how genocide happens and how it is often denied. He says the scourge could return anytime since “it’s part of human nature” and then recommends “the best books to read about it”. The books include: “Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland” by Christopher Browing” (February 28, 2017), “The Years of Extermination” by Saul Friedlander (April 1, 2008); “Bloodlands” by Timothy Snyder (October 12, 2010); “Blood and Soil” by Ben Kerman (September 25, 2007) and “A Problem from Hell” by Samantha Power (May 6, 2003).

One of the books, which Naimark did not recommend in his seminal interview is the one written by the anthropologist, Alexander Laban Hinton with the title: “It Can Happen Here: White Power and the Rising Threat of Genocide in the U.S.” (June 8, 2021). The book, according to its synopsis, captures the demonstration by the white supremacists shortly after Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election.

In It Can Happen Here…., Hinton argued that “there is a real risk of violent atrocities happening in the United States.” Here is the synopsis of the book: “A renowned expert on genocide argues that there is a real risk of violent atrocities happening in the United States. If many people were shocked by Donald Trump’s 2016 election, many more were stunned when, months later, white supremacists took to the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, chanting “Blood and Soil” and “Jews will not replace us!”

“Like Trump, the Charlottesville marchers were dismissed as aberrations—crazed extremists who did not represent the real US. It Can Happen Here demonstrates that, rather than being exceptional, such white power extremism and the violent atrocities linked to it are a part of American history. And, alarmingly, they remain a very real threat to the US today. Alexander Hinton explains how murky politics, structural racism, the promotion of American exceptionalism, and a belief that the US has, have achieved a color-blind society; have diverted attention from the deep roots of white supremacist violence in the US’s brutal past.”

The social media influencer, Martins Vincent Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan (VDM), who visited the town hours after the killings, posted some videos that would touch the devil itself if he were to watch them! How in 2025 such horror could be visited on a people without a corresponding response from the State beats one’s imagination. How the perpetrators of such genocide could escape without any causality is a deeper low in the history of our security alertness!

For goodness’ sake, those who carried out the acts were no spirits. They did not appear suddenly in Yelwata and disappeared just like that! No. They travelled from somewhere to Yelwata. They used a means of transportation. Someone coordinated the attacks using a telecommunication device. Where were the security agencies in all this? Where were the top Army brass who said that they had relocated to Benue? Where is the efficiency of our intelligence agencies? How come nobody spotted the assailants; how come nobody had an idea of the attack before it happened?

And when the terrorists first attacked the police post in Yelwata, who got the signal at the Benue State Police Command Headquarters? Or are we to believe that when the killer squad showed up at the Yelwata Police Station, the men on duty simply disappeared and reported the incident to no one? Granted, the locals praised the efforts of the police during the attack, what happened to reinforcement? Why did help not come?

Watching the videos posted by VDM, my mind went back to Alexander Hinton again and his postulation on “how murky politics, structural racism…have diverted attention from the deep roots of white supremacist violence in the US’s brutal past.” Why is the Nigerian State playing the ostrich at the expense of the lives of the people? Why is the State deliberately impotent?

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The more I consider the Benue killings and other killings of the minority tribes in the Middle-Belt zone of Nigeria, the more I am tempted to believe that there is a deliberate effort at exterminating some tribes so that the bigger ones can live! It is no news that Benue State has been under the siege of the Fulani herdsmen for a long time. It did not start today. But it is more prominent today, or rather, it became more pronounced during the eight years of the locusts that the lethargic General Muhammadu Buhari spent in Aso Rock.

Under the reign of the stark retired General, Benue buried their people in their hundreds. All the President-do-nothing did then was to laugh off the fact that his Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, refused to relocate to Benue as he ordered. Buhari departed Makurdi to Abuja and he did nothing to the IGP.

Then President Bola Ahmed Tinubu came with his Renewed Hope mantra. But the present situations in Benue, and most states of the North-Central, North-East and North-West, are nothing but hopelessness! States in the other southern states are just a bit better as the killings are not as pronounced as what we have up North.

In that single attack on Yelwata, over 200 people were killed. The videos show the charred bodies of people killed in their sleep. Children were burnt to ashes. And to underscore that what the attackers intended was annihilation, the store houses where grains and other food items were kept were completely razed! You may therefore want to ask what is the mission of the attackers if not to ensure that the people of Yelwata go into extinction?

How do we explain that after killing the people; after sending their children to their early graves, the attackers went for the food storage of the people? What is that if it is not to ensure that the survivors are starved to death afterwards?

And the best response from the government is the same colourless press statement reiterating the President’s directive to security chiefs to implement his earlier directive to bring lasting peace and security to Benue State, and a call on the governor of the state to convene “reconciliation meetings and dialogue among the warring parties to end the incessant bloodshed and bring lasting peace and harmonious coexistence between farmers, herders, and communities.”

President Tinubu and those in charge of our security architecture must stop the pretence game. And they must stop now! The Nigerian State must wake up from its deliberate impotency on this Benue matter! What is happening in Benue is not about “Political and community leaders in Benue State”, who act ‘irresponsibly’ and make “inflammatory utterances”. It is about the deliberate intention of the killers to completely erase their victims from the surface of the earth! It is only in a war situation that people are killed, and their means of livelihood burnt. Benue is not at war, at least the conventional way.

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What happened in Yelwata on Friday night to Saturday morning was and is beyond mere communal clash. It was a calculated and well-coordinated action. That is how genocide happens; that is how annihilation takes place. It must be deliberate, it must be systematic, and it must be total, with the State playing the ostrich! Yelwata lost over 200 souls in less than five hours. Many have not been accounted for. That is pure genocide; complete annihilation to achieve an end! Those who doubt these assertions should read “The Armenians of Aintab: The Economics of Genocide in an Ottoman Province (April 13, 2021) by Umit Kurt).

Someone should tell Mr. President that the Yelwata attack is not just “the latest news of wanton killings in Benue State: that “is very depressing”, as penned by Bayo Onanuga in his ‘State House Press Statement.’ It is a deliberate attempt to wipe out a whole ethnic nationality. Yes, like the president said, “Enough is now enough”, but it must go beyond the rhetoric. The people of Benue need reassurance of the sanctity of their lives in the nation called Nigeria. They need hope that being in the minority is not a ticket to early graves.

They need someone to ignite in them a new sense of belonging; more so, they need solid protection from the State. The attacks on them are too graphic, they are too systematic for the agencies that call themselves intelligence agencies not to know about them and arrest the situations. The government has buried its head in the sound for too long. The echoing of the bazookas used in killing the people should be loud enough for the ostrich to know that the danger it is pretending not to recognise is real!

This is the time to stop “murky politics.” The people must not be sacrificed on the altar of politics and power games. Rivers State did not witness any killing, but President Tinubu declared a state of emergency there. What happened in Rivers State governed by an opposition party governor is nothing compared to the killings in Benue where the ruling President’s party has its governor.

Not a single soul was killed in Rivers State before President Tinubu sent all the democratic structures there packing! But in Benue, Plateau, Borno, Zamfara and other troubled States of the North, Nigerians are killed in their thousands, and the president is reducing the entire genocide to a mere ‘State House Press Statement’. The President should listen to himself talk occasionally. He should know that both the slave and the freeborn passed through the same process!

I close here with the timeless advice by Alexander Laban Hinton in that 2011 interview to wit: “… If societies stayed out of wars, protected the rights of groups of “others” through the rule of law, refused to tolerate racism and extreme nationalism and maintained democratic checks and balances on their political elites, one could imagine a world without genocide.” Only leaders with the right attitudes to governance can achieve this!

News

Why We Expanded Presidential Amnesty Scholarship Scheme — Otuaro

Published

23 hours ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

Otuaro (middle) in a group photograph with the PAP foreign scholarship students in the United Kingdom after an interactive session in London on Saturday, 25 October, 2025.

The Administrator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Dr Dennis Otuaro, has expressed his unwavering commitment to ensuring that more indigent students and communities of the Niger Delta benefit from the PAP scholarship scheme.

He stated this while explaining what informed his decision to expand the scheme and increase formal education opportunities for poor students, and to build a huge manpower base in the region.

A statement issued by Mr Igoniko Oduma, Special Assistant on Media to the PAP boss said Otuaro spoke during an interactive session in London on Saturday with the beneficiaries of the scholarship initiative deployed for undergraduate and post-graduate programmes in universities across the United Kingdom.

The engagement, which was at the instance of the PAP boss, provided an opportunity for the Office and the scholarship students to discuss issues pertaining to their welfare and challenges with a view to addressing them.

Otuaro said that while in-country scholarship deployment was 3800 in the 2024/2025 academic year, the figure increased to 3900 in the 2025/2026 and foreign scholarships were about 200.

He attributed the increase in deployment to the massive support of President Bola Tinubu and the Office of the National Security Adviser.

Otuaro stressed that he was greatly encouraged by the President and the NSA, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, and that he knows how impressed both of them are concerning the PAP initiatives, which align with the Renewed Hope Agenda.

He reiterated his call on the students to justify the huge investment in their education by the Federal Government by studying hard to make good grades.

He also urged them to conduct themselves and be responsible ambassadors of Nigeria while in the U.K, stressing that “you will be adding value to your families and communities when you complete your programmes successfully.”

The PAP helmsman said, “We want the scholarship programme to impact more students and communities in the Niger Delta. That’s why we have expanded it and increased formal education opportunities.

“We want you to take this opportunity very seriously so that the government, too, will be encouraged. I know how much support His Excellency, President Bola Tinubu GCFR, gives to the Presidential Amnesty Programme.

“Mr President and the National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, are very impressed with what we are doing. On your behalf I would like to, once again , thank His Excellency and the NSA for giving you this life-changing opportunity. We are confident that Mr President and the NSA will continue to support us.

“The knowledge you are receiving in your institutions today is to enable you plan yourself and prepare for the future. Whatever knowledge you gain cannot be taken from you.

“So as PAP scholarship students, we expect responsible and good behaviour from you. Government is investing heavily in you and you have the obligation to justify the investment. Be agents of change and avoid acts of mischief while in the U.K.”

News

OPINION: A ‘Crazy’ African Nation, Where Citizens Eat And Drink Football

Published

1 day ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

By Tony Erha

It was in October, a semi-summer-month and twilight of the year that ushers in the chilling and extreme winter. A nonagenarian woman gave me a friendly smile that revealed cheeky dimples. As I bowed respectfully to her ripened age, she offered a leathery hand for a handshake, which I received warmly, returning her infectious smile. For a youth who prays for longevity shouldn’t deprive the elderly of the walking stick. I had helped her, carrying a furred handbag to our seats on a night-long intercity bus, from Istanbul to Ankara, in Turkey, the Balkan nation, where we stopped over, in year 2004.

She spoke Turkish rapidly, whilst I retorted in a passable and incoherent Turkish language that ‘I don’t speak the official language of the only country of the world that is located on two continents; Europe and Asia. “You American?” She asked in English. It was obvious that my jeans, necklace and a fez cap that I upturned, in the manner of the Yankees, might have portrayed me as one. “No. I am a Nigerian”, I said, dragging the words. “You Nee-jay-rian!” she exclaimed, whilst I nodded confidently. Then she was elated; “Okocha Jay-Jay!” She spoke to others in the bus that clapped and hailed. I wondered why a 91 years-old-woman, was so passionate about football and one of its heroes, as if she was a youth.

At her request, an old video of a football match showed the mesmerising display of Austin ‘Jay Jay’ Okocha, viewed on a television set affixed to the bus. There were instantaneous excitement and catcalls each time Okocha, the great football ‘talisman’ from Nigeria, did his ball flips and dribble-runs that displaced his opponents, earning him one of the few (if not the greatest) football entertainers in football’s history. It was as if the video tape, recorded in his notable plays in Besiktas, a Turkish club side, was a live match. So great was Okocha’s global fame that the old woman relived again; “Jay Jay Okocha is a dangerous footballer, who’s full of tricks on the field of play. The only trick he didn’t do with the ball from his bag of football artistry was to play on top the swimming pool”. In Mustafa Ataturk’s nation, footballers of Nigeria’s decent had and still make their soccer very eventful.

Victor Osimhen, the leggy playmaker and striker with a dye-hair like the white mushroom head, who recently renewed his contract with Galatasaray, a Turkish top team, is also a Nigerian, who has received the applause in the peninsula country and across the globe like Jay Jay Okocha. Candidly, Oshimen, the goal mechine, who is a tonic to the Turks and football fans across the world, also does the unimaginative with the round leather, but certainly not with the same fascinating skills of Jay Jay! But the Turkish fans are readily tilted to football fanaticism.

Victor Osimhen

If it’s ‘fanatic-fans’ in Turkish football, it’s certainly ‘supporters hooliganism’ in the United Kingdom (UK), where association soccer (football) was founded in 1863, with similar kicking games played in Greece, China and Rome since 2,000 years. In UK, football is played with fanfares, pool betting and media vuvuzela. English soccer is a gainful entertainment industry raking in huge gate fees from plays, promotions, television and media razzmatazz, which is often imitated in Nigeria, with passions and ‘occult’ following. So worrisome was the ‘social hype and lawlessness’ youths and others attach to English soccer that security operatives have constant migraine fighting soccer addiction and frequent street brawls.

Jay Jay Okocha, Nwankwo Kanu, Dan Amokachi, Taribo West and other Nigerian stars, that once dominated and currently rule other foreign clubs, opened the floodlight of extremist football following into the country. Once upon a time, the then Prince Charles (now the king of England), was spotted (with young boys) playing the game, inside the Buckingham Palace, all wearing jersey number ’10’ with Jay Jay Okocha’s name inscribed). That the number-one-global-royalty adored soccer by wearing the jersey of a footballer from a third-world African nation, somewhat illustrates that which is often said about soccer being more than a mere sport. ‘Football Tripper’, a British online news porter, describes soccer as “oxygen” to numerous men and women. In Brazil, the South American nation, there is a deity called “Soccer”, as well as it’s a vivacious Reggae, a unique music genre in Jamaica.

Still, it is food and sups in Nigeria. In this Africa’s most populous nation, with plentiful viewing centres and liquor spots, there are live television football tournaments and soccer video games, with consumable food, alcoholics, carbonated drinks and some ‘unlawful substances’ that are at the behest of business owners and ‘intoxicated’ fans.

In what soccer dramatics came to know as ‘the Dammam Miracle’, viewing centres, beer parlours and restaurants were instantly sold out in the country, in 1989, after ‘footbocrazy’ Nigerians, stormed the streets in prolonged wild celebrations. For the Nigerian U-20 football team, at the FIFA World Youth Championship, held in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, came back from a four-goal deficit to level up and defeat the Russian counterpart, making the Nigerian team the first to come back from a semi-final to win a FIFA tournament. Soccer, indeed, is a crazy sport in Nigeria. Once upon a time, a man had shattered the screen of his expensive television, because Austin Jay Jay Okocha, his favourite star, had lost a penalty in a continental match!

It’s said that football, especially when the Nigerian national teams of men and woman play, tends to unite Nigerians than other national blights that turn them apart. Now, the current national fanaticism is for the Victor Osimhen-inspired Super Eagles, to qualify for the 2026 World Cup gala, even though it has to go the extra obstacles of playing more legs, whereas the team had frittered the early opportunities to qualify.

And sensing that most Nigerians care less of the economic woes that plagued them, but for the football fad, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the nation’s President, would cash-in to feed their ago awarding huge cash to high profile football tournaments and wins, like he recently accorded the Super Falcons, the female national team, for achieving a similitude of the Dammam miracle, to bring home a coveted African Cup of Nations (AFCON) trophy!

News

Ex-soldiers Fume Over Lifetime Benefits For Sacked Service Chiefs

Published

1 day ago

October 26, 2025

Editor

The sacked Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, and two other service chiefs, Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Hasan Abubakar, and Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla, are set to receive generous retirement benefits.

The benefits include bulletproof vehicles, domestic aides, and lifetime medical care.

Their exit follows President Bola Tinubu’s appointment of new service chiefs on Friday.

General Olufemi Oluyede has been named the new Chief of Defence Staff, while Major-General W. Shaibu takes over as Chief of Army Staff.

Air Vice Marshal Sunday Kelvin Aneke becomes the new Chief of Air Staff, and Rear Admiral I. Abbas the Chief of Naval Staff. The Chief of Defence Intelligence, Major-General E.A.P. Undiendeye, retains his position.

The President’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Communication, Sunday Dare, said in a statement on Friday that the removal of the service chiefs was in furtherance of the Federal Government’s ongoing efforts to strengthen Nigeria’s national security architecture.

According to the Harmonised Terms and Conditions of Service for Officers and Enlisted Personnel in the Nigerian Armed Forces, signed by President Tinubu on December 14, 2024, the service chiefs are entitled to substantial retirement packages upon disengagement.

The document stipulates that each retiring service chief will receive a bulletproof SUV or an equivalent vehicle, to be maintained and replaced every four years by the military.

They are also entitled to a Peugeot 508 or an equivalent backup vehicle.

Beyond the vehicles, the package includes five domestic aides — two service cooks, two stewards, and one civilian gardener — along with an aide-de-camp or security officer, and a personal assistant or special assistant.

They will also retain three service drivers, a service orderly, and a standard guard unit comprising nine soldiers.

The benefits extend to free medical treatment both in Nigeria and abroad, as well as the retention of personal firearms to be retrieved upon their demise.

However, while officers of lieutenant-general rank and equivalents are entitled to international and local medical care worth up to $20,000 annually, the benefits for the service chiefs, though not stated in the document, are believed to be considerably higher.

The HTCOS reads, “Retirement benefits for CDS and Service Chiefs: The following benefits shall be applicable: one bulletproof SUV or equivalent vehicle to be maintained by the Service and to be replaced every four years. One Peugeot 508 or equivalent backup vehicle.

‘’Retention of all military uniforms and accoutrement to be worn for appropriate ceremonies; five domestic aides (two service cooks, two stewards, and one civilian gardener); one Aide-de-Camp/security officer; one Special Assistant (Lt/Capt or equivalents) or one Personal Assistant (Warrant Officer or equivalents); standard guard (nine soldiers).

“Three service drivers; one service orderly; escorts (to be provided by appropriate military units/formation as the need arises); retention of personal firearms (on his demise, the personal firearm(s) shall be retrieved by the relevant service); and free medical cover in Nigeria and abroad.”

However, the policy specifies that such entitlements apply only if the retired officers have not accepted any other appointment funded from public resources — except when such an appointment is made by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

In such cases, the officers, according to the document, will only receive allowances commensurate with the new role rather than a full salary.

Retired soldiers protest lavish perks

Reacting, some retired soldiers decried what they described as the luxurious benefits and entitlements reserved for service chiefs and senior military officers.

They lamented that junior personnel continued to suffer neglect and unpaid entitlements despite years of service to the nation.

The retired officers expressed frustration over the disparity in welfare and treatment between senior and junior ranks within the military.

One of the leaders of the discharged soldiers demanding their owed entitlements, Sgt. Zaki Williams, expressed frustration over the entitlements reserved for the service chiefs.

Speaking in an emotional tone, Williams, who claimed to be speaking for more than 700 soldiers in his group, said many retired non-commissioned officers had been abandoned despite dedicating their lives to defending the country.

He said, “I don’t really understand how our people in Nigeria do things. The people at the top always do things to favour only themselves. They don’t care about the poor or the junior ones who sacrificed everything.”

The retired sergeant recalled that government officials had made several promises to improve their welfare, but none had been fulfilled.

“Since the day they made those promises to us, we went back home and didn’t hear anything again. Everything just ended there. We’ve been waiting till now, but nothing has happened,” he added.

Williams said the situation had left many of his colleagues demoralised and divided over whether to continue pressing for their entitlements.

“Some of us said we should protest again, but others refused. We told them that day that we were not going for another protest. If the government wants to help us, they should help us. If not, we’re done,” he said.

He also accused senior military officers of frustrating efforts by the defence ministry to address the concerns of retired personnel.

According to Williams, life after service has been extremely difficult for most of them who retired voluntarily or were discharged without compensation.

“How can someone retire after years of service and still not get their entitlement? Many of us can’t even build a house. The senior officers have houses, cars, and everything good, but the rest of us have nothing,” he said.

He added that the little compensation given to some was not enough to rebuild their lives.

“If they give you N2m today, what can you really start with it in this country? You have children, family, and responsibilities, yet you can’t even afford a plot of land,” he said.

Expressing disappointment, he said most junior officers had lost faith in the system.

“We’ve handed everything over to God,” he said quietly. “We’ve cried and done our best. They promised us, but in the end, it’s still zero. We haven’t seen anything. That’s why many of us are now silent.”

Another retired soldier, Abdul Isiak, lamented that promises made to retired personnel had remained unfulfilled, leaving many struggling to survive.

He said, “All you said they would give to them would be done promptly, and they are more than what we need to sustain our lives. This is very unfair. We have suffered a lot, and they’re yet to give us our entitlements after leaving the service. What is our offence? Is it because we are junior officers?”

The former sergeant said the senior officers continued to enjoy generous retirement packages while lower ranks were denied their due benefits.

“We are preparing for another protest for them to pay us. This is very bad,” he said.

(PUNCH)