Benue Rising

Leaders who want to create a functioning system prioritize the safety of lives and property of everyone regardless of their backgrounds.

Unfortunately, Nigerian leaders have wittingly elevated a certain group of people over and above everyone else, leading to mutual suspicion among the various ethnic groups in the country.

When "armed hunters" were killed in Uromi, there was total rage across the country, with "leaders" calling for decisive action against the perpetrators.

However, when hundreds of unarmed people were massacred in Plateau and Benue, only a few social media posts here and there, mostly showing solidarity for political reasons, than actual condemnation.

But we forget that actions have consequences and such hypocrisy from Nigerian leaders is awakening even the very fearful ones to become vengeful in their everyday interactions with other Nigerians.

Today, every Nigerian now has the tendency to display monstrous behaviour towards other Nigerians, whether provoked or not. The latest barbarism in Mangu, Plateau State is a clear illustration of our lost values.

The earlier our government begins to show leadership by punishing law breakers regardless of their backgrounds, the more emboldened everyone else will become, making Nigeria a den of savages!

The "calculated, well planned, genocidal invasion by terrorists herdsmen" going on in Benue State has proven that the federal government is complicit and therefore, can't be trusted to end it.

It is incumbent on natives across the land to come up with organic, community-based and community-driven solutions to counter this pogrom.

Without any shade of doubt, security forces have proven to be unwilling to get involved in containing the mass killing. Instead, they have sometimes, taken sides with the killers to accelerate the obliteration of our people.

What the Benue State government needs to do now is not to be seeking sympathy from anyone but to mobilize the youths to defend their communities, even if it's with clubs and machetes.

The horror of watching helpless unarmed people always being killed in their sleep is enough nightmare to prick the moral consciousness of any person of reason.

Except, however, that our leaders are also complicit in the genocide and would prefer rather to rule over ashes when everyone must have been burned!

This is a clarion call to collective action. Our leaders must also eschew party differences and work together as a unit to address this monster, frontally.

The Governor might also need to reshuffle his cabinet, bring in fresh hands, preferably technocrats, to breathe life into the system and help provide the much needed direction in these uncertain times!

Benue State Anti-Open Grazing Law: Consigned to the Archives

The Benue State Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law of 2017 was a brainchild of an organic civil movement -- Movement Against Fulani Occupation (MAFO).

The then Governor of Benue State, Dr Samuel Ortom, resisted the law and refused to implement it because he was of the APC.

But as soon as he decamped to the PDP, he embraced it and it became the pillar of his administration as far as the infamous farmer/herder conflict is concerned.

Sadly, the administration of Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia has decimated the law, rendering it ineffective.

The law categorically states that open grazing can be stopped by Livestock Guards.

Yet, the Reverend Gentleman tactically merged the Livestock Guards with other vigilante groups under the Benue State Civil Protection Corps, a group not recognized by the Anti-Open Grazing Law!

To actually make the law work, two things must happen:

1. Revive the expunged Livestock Guards and review the law, taking into account shortcomings that made it problematic.

2. Amend the law and recognize the Benue State Civil Protection Corps as the new implementation wing.

Until the above is done, the law will only exist on paper!

Whatever purpose this is meant to serve, only time shall tell!

Do You Know that the Tiv Once Stood Against Colonial Oppression Without Guns?

In the early 1900s, the Tiv people resisted indirect rule -- refusing to accept warrant chiefs imposed by the British.

They organized themselves through clan heads and elders, maintaining communal leadership based on truth and fairness.

What happened to that spirit of unity and resistance?

Today, as our land is under siege, we must remember that our strength is in our identity!

Always remember that if you can't be the light, be the matches that lights the candle!