Yelewata killings: The Benue State genocide grinds on, By Ahmed Aminu-Ramatu Yusuf

In the early morning hours of 14 June, a series of well-organised, precise and synchronised  attacks were inflicted on the innocent and peace-loving people of Yelewata in Guma Local Government Area (LGA) of Benue State by Fulani terrorists. It is part of the genocide against the people of the state.

Children, women, men and the elderly were massacred, while others, horrified and bleeding, fled into the bush. Some of the victims  were even roasted. Houses, shops, and food storages, amongst others, were set ablaze, and farmlands destroyed. Two soldiers and one officer of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps were killed on active duty while responding to distress call.

The number of those killed is between  two-three hundred. Not even in the on-going Israeli-Iranian War did either side lose so many in one night.

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) reported that victims  with varying and serious degrees of injuries were hospitalised, with  1069 households displaced. It reported the displaced as including 1,768 females, 759 males, 757 children and 1,870  adults. Two-hundred and twenty-five lactating mothers, eighty-two pregnant women, and ninety-one elderly persons were among the displaced.

One survivor, Michael Ajah bitterly and painfully narrated how he lost at least twenty members of his family, while his shops, foodstuffs stores, and everything he had were burnt down. Another survivor, Joseph Kwagh,  lost his father, mother, and six siblings. There is not a single person of the Yelewata community who did not lose relations, friends or neighbours

The Yelewata massacre is one of several massacres visited on the Benue people by Fulani terrorists. In February, over sixty people were gunned-down in Agatu and Apa Local Governments, and in April, over forty people were killed while sleeping in Iwili, Ukum Locol Government. In fact, over four-hundred people were killed across seventeen Benue communities within a month. Between 2023 and the first week of June, 6,896 people were killed.

But, the Fulani killings predated 2023. From 2011, Benue has suffered violent attacks in sixteen of its twenty-three local governments. In 2018, 1,983 people were killed; and between 2023 and 2025, 6,896 people were killed. Over forty per cent of the land in Benue State has been seized and are occupied  by Fulani terrorists.

Currently, Benue State has over five hundred thousand, one hundred and eighty-two internally displaced persons (IDPs), scattered in twenty-six camps and eighty-five host communities in the state. The IDP population in Benue State  constitutes thirty-eight per cent of  the IDPS in entire Middle-Belt areas.

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Fulani genocide-attacks in Benue State, like in other parts of Nigeria, do not just occur. Segun Onibiyo, a broadcaster with the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, wrote that the: “attacks are not random. They follow a pattern. Threats are issued. The military warned. The attacks happen. The victims bury their dead. The presidency remains silent.”

He  added that when the people embarked on protest-demonstrations and blocked roads, as they did in May 2015, “Drones were flown over the protest area. Riot police dispersed the crowd with tear gas. Two people were arrested for allegedly “inciting unrest.” The attackers of the previous night, meanwhile, roamed free.” This is the situation virtually across the country.

Therefore, while Fulanis are largely responsible for these  killings, the Federal and Benue State Governments must be held primarily responsible. Section 14(2) of the constitution  clearly states  that: “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.”

Protecting citizens lives and properties, safeguarding their well-being, and promoting good governance are the primary and integral tasks of government. Government’s virtual inaction on  terrorism, and its reactions to citizens’ protests, completely negate the security and welfare of the Benue people!

Some  Fulani elites  blame the state government  for the genocide. They accuse the government of enacting the “Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law, 2017.” They claim that the law targets Fulani pastoralists, and does not take their rights and interests into consideration. They said Fulanis were not consulted before the law was enacted, and, hence, is not inclusive. One of their associations, Miyeeti Allah, challenged the law in the Federal High Court, and Court of Appeal, and lost in both courts.

The incessant attacks perpetrated by Fulani terrorists, the inertia of the security forces controlled by the Federal Government, and the failure to reach amicable agreements had compelled the state government  to enact the law. Contrary to the claims of the Fulani elites, farmers, herders, the  police and other security agencies, amongst others groups, were consulted in Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba states in 2016 and 2017.

The Law, enacted on 22 May, 2017, gave a grace of six months for herders to establish ranches. Its enforcement began on 1 November, 2017. This explains why Fulani herders intensified their attacks on Benue communities from 2018 onward.

But how can  migratory  pastoralists dictate the content of a law to the  government in a state in which they are not indigenes? Who are they to dictate which law they will obey and which they will disobey? Is that not an invitation to anarchy?  How can there be one law for the entire people of a state and another for occupational exclusivity of the Fulani pastoralists? If the state government is hostile to their rights and interests as they claim, why can’t they migrate to other states that accept open grazing?

Consistent and persistent attempts have been made by politicians, and even academics and journalists to simplify, and divert attention from the genocide perpetrated against indigenous communities by Fulani terrorists, through their misuse and abuse of language. These they do by describing the on-going genocide in Benue State and parts of Nigeria as “farmers-herders’ conflicts”, “communal clashes”, “reprisal attacks”

But, as the paramount ruler of the Tiv people of Benue State, Tor Tiv V, Professor James Ayatse, underscored, the crisis in Benue State is: “not herders, farmers clashes, it is not reprisal attack… What we are dealing with here in Benue State is a calculated, well-planned and full-scale genocidal invasion and land grabbing campaign by herder terrorists and bandits. This has been on for decades and it worsening every year.”

Genocide indeed is what is going on in  Benue  and other Middle-Belt States, in Hausaland and parts of the country. What is “genocide” if not the gruesome killing, displacement, and inflicting of physical and psychological violence on an ethnic, racial, and religious group? Is the occupation of other people’s land by the Fulanis, and their appointment of their own paramount kings – called “ardo”- in such lands not example of genocide?

Is the insistence of Fulani terrorists to dictate the basis and conditions of peaceful resolution of the crises, their false claims that they are not consulted and/or involved in community matters, their deliberate destruction of other peoples’ economic activities, and their imposition of taxes on the indigenous people, as in parts of Hausa land, not examples of what deliberate genocide is all about?

The ongoing genocide by Fulani terrorists must be brought to an end by the government and  people of Nigeria.

Ahmed Aminu-Ramatu Yusuf worked as deputy director, Cabinet Affairs Office, The Presidency, and retired as General Manager (Administration), Nigerian Meteorological Agency, (NiMet). Email: [email protected]