Only cowards attack and kill innocent, vulnerable people at night – then run away to hide in the havens of their sponsors, be they foreign or domestic, Fulani or Larakawa.
This is the brutal and shameful reality that Benue has known too often, since 2009 — blood soaked earth beneath the bare feet of children, torched homesteads under the sky where peace once reigned, and the anguished cries of mothers who never asked for war but have received its horrors at their doorstep.
This is not just an attack on land. It is an assault on the spirit of a people whose only fault is their ancestral right to till their soil, plant their yam, sing their age-old songs, and nurture their children in peace.
Yet, in the midst of this devastation, Benue is not broken. The soul of our land, our people and our crops remain unbowed.
His Excellency, Rev. Fr. Dr. Hyacinth Iormem Alia, Governor of Benue State, has not stood idle in the face of this unspeakable violence. With tireless courage, he has led a people-centered government that is actively engaging federal security institutions, relocating internally displaced families where relative quiet and peace are beginning to sprout, rebuilding communities some of the perennially bedeviled spaces, and strengthening the state’s internal security architecture with greater and more deployments and redeployments.
He has not only spoken soothing words to the bruised families of the attacked and the killed, acted with the strength and resolve of a true leader where others wavered, and persisted when giving up might have been easier.
The Alia administration is not just responding with sailings and lamentations reminiscent of the past days; it is redefining the very grammar of governance in Benue State by prioritizing the safety, dignity, and restoration of every citizen.
Through relentless advocacy at the federal level and continuous outreach to international human rights bodies; the government is putting the plight of Benue on the national and global conscience in the right perspective.
History is replete with accounts of those who dared to slaughter the innocent. From the Nazi architects of genocide, to the Rwandan génocidaires, to warlords in Liberia and Sierra Leone, none escaped the gavel of justice forever.
Their days of terror were eventually numbered, and justice — though slow in its stride — arrived with the weight of history behind it. So too will it be for those who have turned Benue into a testing ground for imported terror. The law of sowing and reaping may tarry, but it never forgets.
But perhaps these painful nights are not the end; but the painful labour of a new beginning. Perhaps this season of anomie, alien to our communal values and foreign to our ancestral peace, is the last convulsion of a dying system of the old orgy of politicking.
Perhaps, in these ashes, the true Benue will rediscover not just its strength, but its transformative resolve to reengineer its own socio-political and psychological architecture; the true Benue of our true dreams.
Indeed, these attacks have begun to stir something deep within the collective Benue consciousness. A new awareness, a new unity, a deeper commitment to secure our own, and a firm determination to never again be at the mercy of enemies hiding in the cloak of impunity.
Benue people are rising; not in vengeance, but in vigilance. The restructuring of our minds has begun; from dependency to the rearmament of our moral and communal compass that yields self-defense, from helplessness and wailing lamentations to assuage political leanings and biases to proactive community watch, from silent mourning and accusatory social media posts and meta-posts to purposeful political engagement that truly represents the true character and identity of a people who once lived, walked and worked the fertile soils of the Benue Valley estates bequeathed them by God.
To His Excellency, Rev. Fr. Dr. Hyacinth Iormem Alia, I say: do not be weary in well-doing. Your government is writing a different kind of history — not just in speeches, dramatisations and wailings, but in shelters rebuilt where relative stability is being sowed and is germinating, lives protected one community after another, lands reclaimed like what is being experienced in upper Kwande and other communities, and futures reimagined as a consequence of selfless and sacrificial service you are rendering to the people of your father and mother – your Benue brothers and sisters.
Benue sees your effort. Benue feels your burden. And the good people of Benue shall continue to stand with you.
Let the world know: Benue shall not die. This season of mayhem shall pass. And when it does as it soon shall, the resilient story of Benue; its people, its villages, its courage, and its leadership, shall stand tall as a beacon to other wounded lands, teaching them that even when the night is long, the dawn surely comes with the tenacious focus of responsive and responsible leadership like this offered by our indefatigable, Governor and leader, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Iormem Alia.
*Prof. Qrisstuberg MsughTer amuA*
_…writes as ‘a Chorus from the Silenced Banks of the Benue’._
