The Politics of Conflict Rhetorics and the Never-Ending Cycle of Violence in Benue
The soil of Benue in North Central Nigeria is rich, not only with the promise of agriculture, but now soaked with the blood of its people. Once known as the Food Basket of the Nation, it risks becoming the graveyard of Nigeria’s conscience. The latest wave of killings has left families shattered, farmlands abandoned, and communities living in perpetual fear. In the corridors of power, however, the silence is deafening. Politicians issue statements filled with platitudes, but the bodies keep falling. As grief turns to numbness and rage simmers beneath the surface, one question lingers: Who speaks for the dead?
This question came into sharper focus in the wake of the attacks on the night of June 13–14, 2025, in Yelwata village, Guma LGA, Benue. The village, already home to displaced persons, became another site of slaughter as suspected Fulani herdsmen attacked, setting fire to homes and market stalls, and mowing down fleeing villagers. Reports on the death toll varied. While some government sources placed the number at 45, Amnesty International and Christian Daily International reported over 100 deaths, possibly more. Talk, more than action, has dominated the government’s response to the attacks, but rhetoric is no substitute for justice.
The Yelwata massacre is not an isolated event but part of a broader pattern. Just a day before, more than 23 people were killed in Makurdi. On May 25, attacks in Gwer West, Ukum, Logo, and Kwande claimed 42 lives. Between April and June 2025, over 270 people were reported killed, with thousands displaced. Since 2011, according to Amnesty International, at least 6,896 people have died in Benue from related violence, while over 150,000 have been displaced.
Despite these grim statistics, the national response remains tepid. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s eventual condolence visit, delayed by more than 48 hours, felt more procedural than compassionate. His decision to cancel a planned stop at Yelwata due to bad roads and flooding was widely criticised. For many, it epitomised the federal government’s passive stance on the tragedies unfolding in Benue.
In the sections that follow, this piece explores how political rhetoric masks inaction, how media neglect erases the humanity of victims, and what concrete measures can end the cycle of violence and deliver justice.
Rhetoric as Policy: The Language of Inaction
Political rhetoric has too often substituted real action. The President’s Special Adviser, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, described the killings as mere reprisals in the ongoing farmer-herder conflict. Such a framing misrepresents the scale and intent of these coordinated attacks. The Tor Tiv, HRH Prof. James Ayatse, rightly warned that misdiagnosing the problem leads to mistreating the disease. These are not random skirmishes over farmland but deliberate campaigns of destruction.
Under the cover of night, attackers raze villages, execute residents, and destroy infrastructure. This is not a conflict of survival but one of territorial conquest. The pattern is chillingly consistent: invade, raze, kill, and displace. Survivors are marked not only by loss but by trauma that compels permanent flight; yet leaders trade accusations rather than pursue justice.
The actors in this crisis span multiple layers: suspected herdsmen militias, criminal syndicates, complicit state actors, and ineffectual law enforcement. Between these actors lie hapless citizens who are increasingly turned into victims by the minute. The root causes of the conflict include long-standing disputes over land, cattle rustling, contamination of water bodies by cattle, the breakdown of communal grazing agreements, and the absence of a properly enforced national policy on farmer-herder relations, all of which have fuelled incidents such as the rape and killing of women in the state, among others. Climate change, along with the attendant emigration, arms proliferation, and ethno-religious tensions, has furthered the breakdown of order.
Instead of focusing on resolution, the tragedy has become political fodder. Former Governor Samuel Ortom blames the current administration, led by Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia, while analysts point to political friction between Governor Alia and SGF George Akume as partly responsible for Abuja’s inaction. But these are diversions. The victims lie beyond the reach of political blame games—they need justice.
Who Speaks for the Dead? Media, Memory, and Moral Failure
The media, once a crucial platform for the national conscience, is failing in its responsibility. The problem isn’t just underreporting but the depersonalisation of death. Victims become numbers; the violence reduced to statistics. Also, public memory moves on too quickly, erasing faces, names, and stories that deserve to be remembered.
Journalists shift focus from humanisation to sensationalism. Every victim has a name, a story, a life cut short. Civil society groups and international NGOs must go beyond reactionary statements—document crimes, name victims, and build pressure for prosecution. Artists, writers, and musicians must use their platforms for public memory. Most of all, citizens must speak with one voice: an injury to one is an injury to all.
A legal mechanism already exists in the form of the Victim Support Fund Law, which remains grossly underutilised. This law serves as a cornerstone of national response—channelling compensation, rehabilitation, and memorialisation. The fund, governed by a presidential committee which was founded in July 2014, supervises and controls the non-military response to terrorism and insurgency. Its activities involve financing the sustainable support of victims of insurgency. However, more than financial support, transitional justice demands recognition of harm, restitution, and steps to ensure non-recurrence.
Systematic documentation is not the norm yet as media are tallying deaths but failing to preserve names and stories. Domestic and international justice mechanisms must be activated where the state fails. Public memorials in Yelwata and elsewhere rise—not only to mourn, but to assert resistance against silence.
What Must Be Done
Breaking the cycle of violence requires more than rhetorical condemnation. The solutions involve a cohesive effort from the government, civil society groups, the media, and the common citizenry. Beyond rhetoric, action is long overdue. The following steps are essential to break the cycle of violence and honour the dead:
At the government level, policy interventions that specifically address the root causes of the conflict are a necessity. These policy interventions must include the strict enforcement of anti-open-grazing laws, and to achieve this, enforcement agencies like forest guards should be well-equipped and employed in policing grazing violations. In addition, the expansion of ranching infrastructure should be a priority for the government at the state and federal levels. It is assumed that if herdsmen have adequate facilities to rear their cattle, it would reduce the need for open grazing. There is also a need for investment in community-led policing, enhanced by surveillance technology. These are not mere reforms; they are lifelines for communities currently drowning in blood.
For civil society groups and international NGOS, they must document crimes, compile names, and push for prosecutions. In addition, religious leaders across the country should move beyond commendable prayers and memorialisation services and use their pulpits as platforms to call for state accountability. Also, creatives across all artistic fields, media, literature, music and the like, should use their art forms as instruments to grant voices to the dead. Most importantly, the ordinary citizens should realise that these attacks represent a shared and common tragedy; thus, we must speak as a United people in memorialisation of the dead and condemnation of their attack and attackers.
Systematic documentation must begin—not only of the number of victims, but of their names, faces, and stories. Each life lost must be accounted for to counter the erasure that follows every massacre. In addition, independent justice mechanisms, whether domestic tribunals or international legal frameworks, must step in where the state has failed. Perpetrators should face the consequences beyond political lip service. For the victims, transitional justice mechanisms should be used to ensure adequate trauma-healing and rehabilitation. Also, public memorials are needed—planted in village squares, inscribed in community halls, marked by annual commemorations. These sites should serve as both remembrance and resistance.
In addition, media reform is equally critical. As such, coverage must centre the voices of survivors and families, refuse euphemisms, and stop sanitising death. Until these steps are taken, the cycle continues. The dead will remain voiceless, the killers faceless, and the nation complicit. We must ask again, and louder this time—not just who speaks for the dead, but who listens when they do?
Dorothy Ibifuro Fakrogha is an Admin Assistant at the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD-West Africa)