- For it is only when we put a name to these bloodcurdling invaders and agents of destruction that we can truly begin the process putting an end to their nefarious and diabolical activities.
The killings in Benue State have reached a dizzyingly frightening height. Over sixty people were killed last week when armed assailants attacked different local governments in the state, marking a new episode of bloodletting in the state that has been grappling with wanton killings and incessant attacks for months on end. The killings in Benue and other parts of the Middle Belt were forever a man-imposed sword of Damocles on an innocent citizenry. It became a festering, cancerous sore because we wanted it so.
Politicians, clergymen and a class of elders from Sokoto to Calabar and from Jos to Maiduguri have lamentably kept their distance for fear of being labelled anti-establishment or pro-establishment. That remains their eternal moral burden, and like an old rugged cross, they carry it everywhere they go. However, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria has voiced their displeasure and lampooned the federal government and Benue State government over the incessant killings in the State. They implored the government to treat the disturbing security situation in Benue with the urgency that it requires and put an end to the carnage.
Like previous killings in the Middle Belt State, the federal government and presidency have treated the matter with troubling indifference. Not even the castigation and the importunate demand of the bishops is enough to wake them up to the magnitude of the issue at hand. The federal government appears not to be genuinely distressed by these killings. No one, not even the passive and casual followers of happenings in Nigeria, needs to wait for the strong criticism of the Catholic Bishops to know that the security situation in Benue requires urgent intervention and resolution.
The demands of these men of God are not unreasonable or outlandish; their requests are not unrealistic or outrageous, but if there is anything this current federal government has demonstrated with shameful consistency, it is to downplay or even outrightly dismiss the plight and suffering of the people. While the Catholic Bishops have chosen to stand on the side of the people, the governor of the state, Hyacinth Alia, who also happens to be a Catholic cleric, has resorted to finger-pointing and blame-sharing instead of grabbing the bull by the horns and tackling the existential security crisis his people are grappling with. Even though one has to cut him some slack because many of the problems and challenges he’s contending with were bequeathed to him by his predecessor, Samuel Ortorm, whose administration was widely described as disastrous.
While Governor Alia has performed well in some aspects of governance, at least better than his predecessor, the perennial and deepening security crisis in the State seems to be overshadowing the few successes he has recorded, especially in the area of payment of salaries and pensions which is a big deal in a state whose economy is sustained and propped up by civil service. His predecessor talked a good game and made so much noise about tackling insecurity in the State, but aside from the passage of an anti-grazing law, which he used as a tool to actualise his political objectives rather than solve the state security crisis, he didn’t do much to address the menace.
Like his predecessor, Governor Alia is now also blaming some influential Nigerians for the insecurity in the state. In a recent interview, he announced with aplomb that some serving politicians in the National Assembly are behind the attacks and killings in the State. One is at a loss as to what the governor expects the public to do with this revelation because it is not enough for him to claim some politicians are behind the insecurity that has claimed the lives of thousands of his people without mentioning the names of these people who revel in and derive satisfaction in seeing the blood of hapless and unarmed people being spilt.
The governor also disclosed that an interim report from a judicial panel he set up to probe the state’s security crisis had indicted several big names. He also stated that the panel’s report is expected to be finalised in the coming days. it is our hope that when the report is made public, the names of the people Alia claimed are responsible for the insecurity in Benue will be published, for it is only when we put a name to these bloodcurdling invaders and agents of destruction that we can truly begin the process putting an end to their nefarious and diabolical activities. .
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