The Benue archipelago, by Dare Babarinsa
It is good that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has visited Benue State to put special focus on the terror that has convulsed that unhappy land for many years. In this 2025, Benue has lost hundreds of its citizens to mindless violence. In the latest episode which prompted the President’s visit, more than 200 citizens were slaughtered. We are not officially at war, but war has come to Benue. If you doubt it, visit the Internally Displaced People, IDP, camps that blight the state like an archipelago of evil.
In Benue, violent death is regular and fear is omnipresent. When the President met Governor Hyacinth Iormem Alia and other leaders of the state, no one could be certain about the source of the problem. What is clear is that fear is coming from many directions and unless unorthodox actions are taking, we may not be witnessing the end of violence in Benue very soon despite the efforts of the President and the best intention of the leaders.
Benue is one of the non-Hausa states roughly grouped as belonging to the Middle-Belt. It used to be part of the old Northern Region until General Yakubu Gowon created the 12 states structure and the present Benue became part of the Benue-Plateau State. General Murtala Muhammed created the state in 1976 and put the capital in Makurdi. The state has a peculiar geography sharing borders with Enugu, Ebonyi, Kogi, Taraba, Nasarawa, and Cross River State. It also has an international border with Cameroon. It has many ethnic groups, mostly the Tiv, Igede and the Idoma. It is geographical location is of special interest.
In the 19th Century, the people across the Benue and Niger valley bore the brunt of the upheavals up North in the wake of the Sokoto jihad led by an itinerant Fulani Islamic preacher, Shehu Usmanu Dan Fodiyo. The Fulani lieutenants of Dan Fodiyo seized power in most of the Hausa states with the help of Hausa people who subscribed to the Islamic revolution. In Zaria, after fierce battles, the Hausa king fled with his loyal supporters south to establish a new town called Suleja which is now part of Niger State. Most parts of the Middle-Belt however remained unconquered and unconquerable. However, the crisis created a great demographic shift and whole population were uprooted. Many of them trekked south and a substantial proportion ended up in Lagos, which had been seized by the British in 1862, and found home in the area called Obalende.
They were a group of listless and rootless youths and became ready tools in hands of British imperialists. They formed the majority of the Hausa Constabulary, founded by Governor John Hawley Glover of the Lagos Colony in the mid-19 Century. They were the instrument used by the arch-imperialists, Frederick Lugard and Thomas Goldie in their pacification of Nigeria. They helped the British in smashing the armies of Ijebu at the Imagbon War of 1892, that of Benin in 1897 and they helped end the Sokoto Caliphate in 1903.
The people of the Middle-Belt were to remain dominant in the Nigerian military for more than 100 years. They came with the Hausa language and that became the language of the Nigerian military.
Their dominance of the early military has not saved their land from bloodletting. Since the return of Civil Rule in 1999, we have witnessed repeated bloodshed in the Middle-Belt, especially Benue, Plateau and Taraba; the old belt abutting River Niger and Benue. Both the Benue and Niger Rivers have defined the destinies of these lands. At the dawn of the 20th Century, some officers at the British Colonial Office had suggested that the Rivers Niger and Benue should be the natural border of the Northern and Southern Protectorates, but Colonel Lugard and many of his officers who had served in India, thought otherwise. They were fascinated by the political arrangement of the caliphate which made the introduction of the Lugardian Indirect Rule possible and attractive. Besides, they had served in India where the Muslim had been welcoming to the imposition of British imperial rule in contrast to the hostility of the Hindus. Lugard did everything to expand the boundary of the Northern Protectorate as much as possible and at the end of the day, it was twice the size of the Southern Protectorate.
But the people of the Middle-Belt were never happy to be part of the Northern Protectorate and later Northern Region. During the Constitutional negotiations that led to Nigeria’s independence, they campaigned for their own region, insisting that the hegemonic Northern Region, dominated by the Fulani aristocracy, be split into at least three regions; the Middle-Belt, Borno and old North. The Yoruba of the North, now in Kwara and Kogi States also wanted a merger with the old Western Region. The British, who had given the Muslims of India a new country, called Pakistan, would not oblige the agitators of Northern Nigeria for new states. The problem persisted and many leaders of the Middle-Belt Movement, led by Joseph Tarka, a teacher, were clamped into prison, especially the Jos and Makurdi Prisons. Chief Bola Ige testified that Makurdi Prison was the worst in Nigeria and Kunle Ajibade, Executive Director of TheNews magazine, confirmed this. Ajibade and Chief Ige, two towering figures of our struggle against military rule, were detained in Makurdi Prisons by the Sani Abacha dictatorship.
By 2025, a lot has changed in the old Middle-Belt but a lot has remained the same and some have gotten worse. The North Central zone of the Middle-Belt; Benue, Kwara, Kogi, Nasarawa, Niger and Plateau states, now have its own Development Commission, courtesy of the Federal Government.
But just as it happened more than 100 years ago, the youths of Benue, Kogi, Nasarawa and Plateau are on the move. They are facing desperate violence from bandits, religious fanatics and suspected armed Fulani herdsmen. Every President since 1999 from Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to Mohammadu Buhari have tried to solve the logjam. Now, it is the turn of President Tinubu to confront the monster. If you want to know the extend of the exodus, you have to visit the rural areas of Ekiti and Osun States where the youths of the Middle-Belt have moved in their thousands. They are engaged mostly in farming, fishing and illegal mining. The demographic implications of this movement would soon be upon us.
There would be many explanations for the terrifying violence inflicted on the Middle-Belt and many people to blame, but the state governors carry the responsibility to find solutions. There are questions that beg for immediate answers. One, who is financing the violence? Two; who would profit from it? These are two questions that security agencies should find answers before the fire in the Benue and Niger valley become a conflagration that may consume the entire country.
In the long term, we cannot be doing the same thing and expect a different result. It is clear now that the era of open grazing is past and governors should invest state resources in solving the problems. Nigerians love beef, but you cannot get beef without cattle. Therefore, let the government of Benue State and other trouble spots create cattle ranches and get their citizens to train for the job. In the past, one of the biggest cattle ranches in Nigeria use to be on Iwo Road, Ibadan. It was founded by the defunct Western Region where the short-horn cattle were bred. Those breed of cattle have disappeared now, eaten into extinction by those in charge, and the old ranch on Iwo Road is now a housing estate. Yet our love for beef is increasing and it may be passed on to the next generation. What we should not pass on to coming generations is the attendant violence and social instability.
At the bottom of every social crisis is the availability of idle hands which are ready to be employed by the devil. Our governors, now that they have higher and fatter allocations from the Federation accounts, needs to think less of grandiose projects and concentrate on the simple task of creating employment. There is a general lack of skills across the land; plumbing, electrical works, bricklaying and even farming, that should put our leaders to shame. So bad is the situation that many construction companies are importing plumbers and electricians from Togo and other countries. Yet this is a country of 220 million people; the most populous in Africa. Chairman Mao Tse Tung proclaimed the Peoples Republic of China on October 1, 1949. Eleven years later, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa, received the Instrument for Nigeria’s Independence on October 1, 1960. Look at where China is today. Look at where we are! We need to reflect and take necessary action.
Our governors need to realise that our youths need jobs. A fully-employed youth would have no time to double-date with the devil. Our leaders need to concentrate on projects and programme that would empower our youths with marketable skills instead importing Chinese technicians and yeomen with billions of dollars for jobs that could, and ought to be done by Nigerians. Distributions of grinding machines, motorcycles and sundry tools are not the only empowerment we need. We need empowerment with skills and real capital investments.
During the last general elections, I was in Okemesi, Ekiti State. One of my childhood friends was fully involved in the process and he was surprised about the movements throughout the night preceding the polls, without fear for safety by people involved. What if they we accosted by robbers or even kidnappers? What he didn’t realise is that during election time, all robbers, cattle-rustlers, kidnappers, terrorists and kindred spirits would be fully employed by politicians and therefore, both night and day would be safe. No idle hand would be available at election period to commit any of those violent crimes.
Let our youths be employed fully, not just on election day, then Benue would sing a new song instead of the Songs of Lamentation.
–Babarinsa is Co-founder of TELL Magazine and Chairman of Gaskia Media Group
