Alia, Tinubu, and the crisis in Yelwata, by Ugo Egbujo

Father Alia is at his wits’ end.

Under his watch, Benue has become a human abattoir, a slaughter field where hope bleeds out. As the sore he inherited festers and turns gangrenous under his nose, he dithers and waffles, unruffled. Alia’s phlegmatic calm mocks the screams of his people. While Benue, slashed and fractured, writhes in agony, his slow and stolid temperament casts a shadow over his empathy, resolve, and soul.

Unlike his predecessor, Samuel Ortom, whose sole act of governance was to bellow nonstop against Fulani herdsmen invasions, Alia is crippled by baffling ambivalence. When he isn’t barring Peter Obi from IDP camps to shroud carnage and misery, he is genuflecting in thanksgiving to Tinubu, to the chagrin of a besieged people. Tinubu, the commander-in-chief, bears the weight of protecting Benue from vampiric terrorists and Nigeria from blood-sucking parasites. Yet Alia remains engrossed in Fawning, in complicit deference, blind to the blood pooling at his feet.

In Alia’s recent televised phone call with Tinubu, a farce was laid bare. Alia showed neither frustration nor anger. Such visible equanimity in the face of torrential bloodletting is curious. Alia couldn’t bring himself to question or lament the failure of federally controlled security agencies to stop the invaders. Alia couldn’t puncture Tinubu’s blithe presumption that it was a communal clash. Alia prioritised politics over the lives and security of Benue. Why didn’t Alia, who has seen charred babies, cry into Tinubu’s ears, demanding action—or, if that seemed rude, plead for salvation? Why did he broadcast that insipid chatter?

Politics can corrode the human spirit. O Father Alia. Yelewata lost two hundred souls in a single, savage day; their charred remains, a testament to terror’s grip, were left like burnt wood in the open. Yet it took VeryDarkMan, a lone social activist, to pierce the nation’s conscience with haunting images: children’s blackened bones clutching their mothers’ skeletons. Only then did Tinubu, stirred from apathy, shuffle his schedule, postponing ribbon-cutting rituals to visit bleeding Benue. Alia found the gaiety to prepare a festive welcome. Under the cover of night, he sent workers to trim grasses. He shut down schools. He lined up shivering children in battering rain to chant sycophantic anthems for a president who had failed them. Is Father Alia’s crass insensitivity borne of fear of Tinubu, who suspends governors on a whim? Does Alia, grappling with bandits for the reins of his state and hanging onto power by the thread of Abuja’s mercy, lick Tinubu’s muddy boots for political survival? Perhaps he dreads his political enemies from Benue whispering in Tinubu’s ear. Yet the people had chosen their darling Alia, a priest, believing he’d be more than a craven politician.

Reverend Fathers were once bold and courageous, perhaps because they had nothing to lose. But Father Alia, once charismatic, now has something which it seems he can’t afford to lose. A worldly gubernatorial throne and 2027 political ambitions. A man whose seemingly glorious path is strewn with banana peels and daggers has to have an eye on his back. Perhaps that’s why the Reverend Father sometimes talks like a chameleon. Though still heaven-minded, he is knee-deep in the marshy waters of Nigerian politics, where success demands guile and ruthlessness. But Alia must strive not to become a symbol of political expediency. He cannot forsake the capacity to call a spade a spade. He wasn’t elected to teach people how to bury slaughtered and burnt women and children without tears.

Tinubu came to Benue reluctantly. So it wasn’t surprising that it turned out to be a hollow ritual. But who could have foreseen that the performance wouldn’t include the copious shedding of tears in Yelewata? He didn’t bother to reach Yelewata to see the scene. Why didn’t he summon the governor and traditional rulers to Abuja and spare the school children the anguish? His lame and lamentable excuses for not bothering to reach Yelewata were: the roads were wretched, the rain was rude and his mind was gloomy. So Tinubu chose a cosy town hall, different from bruised and battered Yelewata, for his baloney banquet. At some point, he told the people of Benue to learn to share their lands with their neighbours, as if the massacres that have consumed thousands of lives in Benue since his reign were caused by some petty squabbles. At another point, he reminded the governor to make a statewide broadcast to ask for blood donations. The peak of the melodrama was when he asked his service chiefs why no arrests had been made, as if they had been in the Sambisa forest and he had just returned from Paris after a 3-month-long ‘working visit’ to Paris.

Tinubu’s visit, deemed by critics as empty of condolence and full of politics, was partly salvaged by the Tor Tiv, a beacon of truth in a fog of cowardice. He lent it a veneer of credibility. Perhaps Alia outsourced truth-telling to the traditional ruler, dodging the wrath of Abuja’s capricious lords. The Tor Tiv spoke plainly, hitting every nail on the head, naming the invasions for what they are: premeditated land-grabbing terrorism. His candour rebuked the deceit dancing in the hall. His defiant tone implored Tinubu to embrace truth with empathy, if not valour, and to act before Benue’s heart stops beating.

Indeed Father Alia’s task is chronic, complex, and daunting. Benue bleeds, its people cry for a shepherd, not a politician. Unfortunately, 2027 is around the corner. Regrettably, the military is stretched thin. So Benue must stand and defend itself. Alia must shed his cloak of ambivalence, cast off the chains of sycophancy, and wield his priestly fire to call a spade a spade. But to last, he must also be nimble. He left the pulpit to dance Suregede with serpentine politicians. He can choose to confront it roaring like a Viking, or he can choose the ruthless stealth of a Ninja. Whatever he chooses, the war must show in his eyes. If he can feel the pain of every woman, man, and child slaughtered in Benue as he would the death of a child, brother, or sister, he will find the urgency, courage, and wisdom to mobilise Benue effectively against this plague.