Benue State Governor, Hyacinth Alia, has accused unnamed high-ranking politicians based in Abuja and the National Assembly of sponsoring violence and shielding those responsible for the recurring attacks in the state.
Speaking on Politics Today, a Channels Television programme aired on Friday, the governor described the security situation in Benue as deeply troubling, claiming that well-placed political figures were not only instigating the attacks but also providing support to the armed groups allegedly hiding in remote areas.
“It is very, very unsettling because top politicians who are very functional and are in the National Assembly and are in Abuja, are the architects and arrowheads of not just instigating, but harbouring and keeping these people and feeding them in the bushes, and taking care of all their needs and buying all the other gadgets for them,” Alia said during the live interview.
He further stated, “This is extremely unacceptable. If they do not love the lives of the people and they’re only fighting for their own position, I think I am serving the interest of the common masses and it is a concern to me, and it is my right to protect it.”
Although the governor refrained from naming specific individuals, he disclosed that a judicial panel he constituted to investigate the crisis had submitted an interim report, which, according to him, already implicated several prominent personalities.
“We set up a judicial panel to sort out for us why we kept having attacks from within and from without, and we have received an interim report,” he said. “Between Tuesday and Wednesday next week, I am going to get a full report from the panel. So once we receive this report that is coming, we are going to take it up and take it up very seriously. There are quite a lot of big names that are mentioned here, so this is where we are.”
Governor Alia also noted that the scale and coordination of the attacks pointed to a level of planning far beyond the usual farmer-herder clashes often associated with insecurity in the Middle Belt region.
“We are under siege,” he declared. “The way these attacks come and the intel we receive, it is a directed, calibrated plan and then executed. Daily, we are receiving that intel. Of late, each of the intel we receive, 60 to 65 per cent of it is quite accurate.
“And then when you realise what is going on, it is beyond just conflict, it is beyond just an ethnic fight between herders and farmers in our state, it is directed, it is planned and then it is executed, it is some terrorism.”
Benue State, regarded as Nigeria’s food basket, has witnessed repeated waves of deadly attacks in recent years. Thousands have been displaced across various local government areas, with communities often left in ruins.
