On Benue Killings

Nigeria, over the past few years has suffered a lot of setbacks in the key aspects of social security and sense of community. Such has resulted into incessant killings and displacements which have come to subject the nation to a serious integrity question. Today, the narrative of the Nigerian nation has been greeted with many negative symbols which cause a lot of discomfort to the citizenry and other concerned individuals. This is the premise upon which we in Global Support for Kids Initiative condemn the recent attack on the people of Benue state of Nigeria by the Fulani herdsmen who have serially been reported as terrors to the people of the State.

Upon receiving the information of the 12th January, 2018 attack which claimed lives rounding up to 50, we felt the shock of such inhumanity which fellow countrymen meted on others and that leaves us wondering what the future holds for the country if such is not vehemently attacked and criticized to a halt. This, among other important factors, decidedly introduced our CONDEMNATION of such act, noting it as the peak of wickedness and an extreme insensitivity to the bond that holds all the ethnic groups in Nigeria together as a people of one nation. This is against what we stand for and what we wish for the nation. In this respect, we have come to such point that we have to, as a matter of urgency, start a wide and 'wild' campaign against such act of terrorism that is capable of subjecting children and young people in Nigeria to an unnatural suffering which their various losses may bring them.

In our study of how this began, we realized that this horrible act has been at war with the people's security since the year 2013 when on February of that year, 186 people lost their lives to these Fulani herdsmen who placed more value on their cows than their fellow countrymen. Since then, the people have been in perpetual fear of being attacked. These faceless humans-turn-beasts have killed both young and old to the tune of 1,413 between February, 2013 and January 2, 2018. Not leaving the masses into this daring act, they attacked the former Governor Suswam and his convoy on 14th March, 2014 leaving him and his men to scurry into hiding. The same way they attacked the former Senate President of the Federation on 11th March, 2016. All of these are indices that these beasts are determined to make the nation inhabitable for their victims. This is the reason why the Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Peter Ayodele Fayose signed the 'Prohibition of Cattle and Other Ruminants Grazing Bill' in Ekiti on 1st September, 2016. This, in the last two weeks also culminated into his approval of various measures to bring any herdsman found in Ekiti to book. This is the tragedy that succeeded the Boko Haram insurgency that the nation has still not recovered from.


While the death toll has risen to over a thousand, there are over ten thousand people that have been displaced by this scourge. In our observation, we realize that every physical displacement comes with an equal psychological displacement which causes a lot of problems to the victim. In a more explicit sense, it is the root cause of what we term death by installment. Our children and young people have a lot to lose from these unnatural disaster. Being orphaned or displaced at a tender age, experience have shown us that many kids are bound to suffer a great deal of psychological trauma which may result to a break of core parts of their psychological buildup. Furthermore, we have come to understand this can result to different problems that would condition the young person into the perpetual life of abusing drugs. Many eventually become criminals or new breeds of terrorists.  We are determined, by the call of our vision in GSK Initiative to ensure that this has no place in our country; not in the West, East, North or in the South.

In this regard, we call on all government agencies to wade into this horrible situation and ensure that ranches are provided for these herdsmen so that there would be no excuse for their sheer sense of inhumanity. We have come face to face with this scourge for too long and we can't afford to jeopardize our vision for such act as this. In a similar perspective, we implore all Nigerians, both young and old, to live beyond this trying times by tuning their senses to the hope of fighting this scourge to a halt through a collective re-visioning of the bond we have together. We sympathize with the victims and hope to create enough grounds, within the capacity of our Initiative, to see to the wellbeing of subjects-victims.