Mfonobong Inyang: The Tragedy In Benue State Is Completely Unacceptable

We can either continue playing the ostrich and keep being politically correct, or we can just say the truth as it is. One of the overarching tragedies of the Nigerian state is the normalisation of the abnormal. Over the weekend, over 200 people, who were mostly women and children, in Benue State lost their lives in the most gruesome and barbaric manner possible. There is no serious country in the world in 2025 where over 200 people are killed in a single day, and everyone continues with business as usual. The tragedy should incite a state of emergency.

Aside from the pervasive insecurity that has generally ravaged the country, the violence against communities of faith in the Middle Belt of Nigeria has been well-documented. The saddest part of these tragedies isn’t just that they are predictable, but those saddled with the responsibility of protecting lives and property have chosen to be ineffective.

No Nigerian anywhere is less Nigerian owing to their ethnicity, religion, political ideology or geography. In more advanced societies, there are more punitive measures for hate crimes where felonies are committed based on any type of discrimination. The mass killings in Benue and other parts of the country go beyond the violence; such impunity comes from a false sense of superiority and entitlement, which is used as a justification for unleashing carnage. If the most important function of a government is indeed the protection of lives and property, the Nigerian state has failed woefully.

I wrote several months ago about how charity must start at home; more specifically, it’s about this unfortunate habit that most Africans have, where they find it easier to show solidarity for far-flung people than for our own people. Whilst people are free to express their sentiments on any topic, it just always seems suspect to me that it’s easier to say, “I stand with country X” that I have never been to or don’t even share strategic interests with than to say, “Justice for Yelewate”. Not to minimise or reduce the loss of lives in climes other than ours, however, it stands logic on its head if I cannot speak out for people I share lived experiences with than others who may not be as invested in their stories. The irony is that foreigners are quicker to condemn these atrocities than those who are supposedly elected to govern. Our political class are the worst culprits; it’s as though they are trying to score international brownie points and project themselves as consequential players in the global scheme of things. Yet the cold reality is that in foreign relations, nobody respects leaders who cannot put their home affairs in order – that’s why membership of groups such as the G7 is not based on population size but on how consequential their respective economies are.

For what it’s worth, the leader of the free world campaigned on law and order, his political opponents called him a madman, but the majority of voters agreed with him and he won the elections resoundingly. Patriotic leaders all over the world are not willing to commit civilizational suicide by surrendering their homelands to elements whose motivations are not compatible with national interests. This is one of the fundamentals that shaped global elections in 2024; in a populist era, more citizens were willing to vote for leaders they may not necessarily agree with personally, but who, from a policy standpoint, espouse sentiments that are important to them. People were tired of incumbents who were consumed with politically correct rhetoric on key issues; instead, they opted for leaders who are not prepared to recite poetry to people who are not poets.

I said all that to say this: the chatter about Nigeria having a $1 trillion economy soon will remain a joke until law and order are established. By the way, our GDP has been halved in the last two years, don’t take my word for it – go and verify. I happen to have a degree in Economics, and I’m not aware of any thriving economy where chaos is a lead magnet for foreign direct investment, except dark money. Investors love one thing and one thing only: predictability. Chaos, on the other hand, is a key driver of capital flight. There is a reason why most of our tech businesses are incorporated in offshore jurisdictions where there is a significant staple of the rule of law, and a reliable justice system is a strong insurance policy for investors.

I have clocked the Nigerian political class in many ways, including their infamous signature of making a tragedy even worse with tasteless comments. As one whose stock-in-trade is words, I find the use of reconciliation in this particular context very disingenuous. Not only does it minimise the gravity of the atrocities, it also falsely suggests that, as we say in Nigerian colloquial terms, it’s a case of two fighting. Statements like that don’t help deterrence, nor do they give succour to those communities. In law, aggressors don’t get to claim self-defence. Our social engineering as a country is off; we reward bad behaviour but punish law-abiding citizens – no surprise that those who came to protest against their communities being attacked were harassed by law enforcement officers who should be empathetic to their plight. There is a level of incompetence that can easily be equated to complicity; if you have lived long in Nigeria, you know that where there is a political will to do anything, it will be done.

It hurts me to say this about my constituency, but someone has to say the quiet part out loud: a large swath of the Nigerian media ecosystem has not covered itself in glory. It doesn’t take a genius to know why young people are less fascinated by legacy media because, from the circumstantial evidence available to them, the maths is not mathing. If X represents a level of carnage which evokes an amount of outrage represented by Y, young people are scratching their heads on why a 10X level of carnage is not evoking a corresponding 10Y amount of outrage. Save for social media, we would never know that sections of the country are burning because most editorials now are about some politicians’ future ambition, which celebrities are sleeping with each other and how one musician has a better collection of foreign used cars than the other. Of course, there are exceptions, media houses that speak truth to power, but they are in the minority. It is why I find it hard to support any censorship of social media despite its attendant nuisance value; I advocate for a more responsible use, but it’s important that ideas can be shared freely over the internet. If those who claim to be veterans won’t speak up, they will have to cede their place to these citizen-centric upstarts.

There is a lot of chatter about how young Africans are increasingly being disillusioned by democracy, and this is one of the reasons. As great as the concept of democracy is as an egalitarian system of government, it’s still theoretical instead of a practical concept – it hasn’t yet become tangible to them. Democracy has to come with development for it to become relevant and, more importantly, culturally relevant to Africans. Democracy means nothing to a community that is constantly ravaged by armed militia; the idea of a government holding power in trust and owing the monopoly of violence is undermined by the brazenness of these non-state actors. If we’re still talking about pockets of ungoverned spaces in 2025, then is Nigeria really a sovereign state? When we celebrate Democracy Day, are we just celebrating a date set aside as a public holiday, or are we actually basking in its dividends? These are the issues.

I have said it numerous times to anyone who cares to listen: if you’re waiting for someone out there to fight for you, the joke is on you. Nobody is coming to save you; you must take personal ownership of your stake in this country. Notice how some of those who are quick to set up ring light and give their hot takes on unimportant issues every eke market day are suddenly quiet when a national tragedy like this happens? As much as I don’t agree with them, I respect the hell out of those who support bad governance with their full chest. However, when I see those that sit on the fence or claim to be neutral, I run for my dear life – e get why. Those groups that only come out to endorse politicians’ ambitions are quiet now, but the moment their principal gets short-changed in the patronage system, you will see how quick they are to mobilise for protests and organise press conferences. Learn from the disaster of 2015 and stop allowing people to use your head to break a coconut; you’re smarter than that.

Being patriotic citizens doesn’t mean we become gaslighters and pretend that all is well; in fact, being a great storyteller is undergirded by being a truth-teller. I still remember Leah Sharibu and the rest of the Chibok girls, those who successfully campaigned on insecurity then cannot tell us now that calling out the failure of government is somehow tantamount to demarketing the country. If my memory serves me correctly, those activists and lovers of Nigerians then were hailed for holding the feet of the government to the fire – that same energy should be maintained. The truth is that the senseless killings of Nigerians are not acceptable and they will never be. We will not allow our consciences to become so numb to the point where we are indifferent to the wanton destruction of human lives and property. My thoughts and prayers are with the long-suffering people of Benue State and other places in Nigeria where marauding elements have laid siege.