OUR FULANI HERDSMEN HAVE GONE MAD AGAIN IN BENUE!- Is this A Case Of Genuine Security Failure? Or Weaponizing Cattle Rearing For Political Instability?

As Mayor of Fadeyi, I write with a heavy heart and blazing fury. This is not just another community under attack—it is a national bloodbath unfolding in Benue State. On June 13–14, in Yelewata alone, as many as 200 villagers were mercilessly gunned down and homes, crops, food stores, even market halls were gutted in flames—rice and yams, the lifeblood of Benue, reduced to ashes  .

1. Outrage: The Scale of Atrocity

This wasn’t an unfortunate clash—it was a massacre. Entire families were torched in their sleep. Survivors recount “charred bodies beyond recognition,” burnt rice stocks, and “market rooms with bodies lying next to blackened piles of food.” One local, Fidelis Adidi, lost five family members in a single night  .

2. Outrage: The President’s Late, PR Tour

President Tinubu finally condemned the killings as “senseless bloodletting” and announced he would visit—not to mourn, but to arrive amid APC flags and fanfare, turning tragedy into campaign optics  . Do Nigerians really need a national broadcast about the slaughter—only to be welcomed by partisan festoons? When the colour of suffering becomes a backdrop for political theatre, our leaders are complicit in the disrespect.

3. Why Are We Here? Unpacking Causes

• Chronic farmer–herder tensions: Decades-long land disputes between predominantly Muslim Fulani cattle herders and mostly Christian farmers have escalated violently over the years  .

• Climate-driven displacement: Desertification has pushed herders south. The collapse of colonial-era grazing corridors left them encroaching on farmland  .

• Militarization of grazing: What should be pastoral occupation has weaponized into identity-driven violence. Amnesty reports show thousands killed since 2016 in Benue alone  .

• Impunity and weak political will: The suspended RUGA policy, unenforced open-grazing bans from 2017, and federal unwillingness to enforce any solution point to a systemic neglect  .

4. Leadership Vacuums & Weaponized Pastoralism

This isn’t a security lapse—it is a policy failure. Herdsmen are no longer migrating—they are moving armies. The proliferation of small arms, communal ethnic mobilization, and the absence of swift justice have transformed cattle routes into killing fields .

5. Bold, Intelligent, Real Solutions

We must urgently demand:

1. Immediate federal intervention: Not PR visits—but boots, operations, manhunts, and prosecutions. Security agencies must be actively deployed, not passively stationed   .

2. Ranching infrastructure & graze reserves: Fully implement ranches and grazing routes with fencing, water supply, veterinary services—bring back RUGA in a transparent, community-based way.

3. Benue law enforcement: Activate the 2017 anti-open-grazing law fully: evict illegal grazing, enforce violations with swift penalties.

4. Community policing & early warning systems: Every large village should have trained vigilante groups partnered with military and police, equipped with drones and identity databases, backed by intelligence.

5. Justice, compensation, restitution: Fast-track trials of captured perpetrators. Victims need financial support—the burning of 40 rice bags or scorched yam barns is not just symbolic loss, it’s ruin.

6. National reconciliation dialogue: Engage state governments, farmers’ and herders’ associations, faith leaders, climate experts—commit to genuine dialogue, land-use planning, and mutual coexistence.

Conclusion

This is not a recurring ‘middle-belt crisis.’ It is national war by default. Unless President Tinubu and his APC choose courage over optics, Nigerians will continue to bleed as campaign props. The blood of Benue demands more than prayers—it demands tangible, lasting action.

Time to rebuild safety, dignity, and trust in our Republic—before our descent into chaos is irreversible.

MAYOR OF FADEYI’S FINAL WORD

🔥 Mayor of Fadeyi’s Final Word

Call me crazy, but I still believe Nigeria can work — if only the cowards would shut up and the bold would rise. And if only the nationalists who love their country without denying their tribal heritage will step up while those blinded by tribal fealty and hatred of other tribes will sit down and shut up

But let’s be clear: no matter how many vigils we call in our many mega cathedrals, We cannot pray our way out of a crisis we keep voting and tolerating into power.

This is not hate for my country or any of its many blessed people and tribes  . This is what heartbroken love for a broken country sounds like.

And until the oppressed stop clapping for their oppressors, the beatings will continue — and the blood will keep flowing.

My name is Ope Banwo and I say this full chest: If the truth burns you, you should take it like that and resolve to do better. This is Mayor of Fadeyi talking. And I say, enough is ENOUGH.