STATEMENT BY BENUE GROUPS ON VICE PRESIDENT OSINBAJO'S VISIT TO BENUE STATE, MAY 16, 2018

We regard and note with mixed feelings the visit of the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and his team to Makurdi, Benue State. We are relieved that the Presidency has remembered its duty to all peoples in Nigeria, especially in the Benue Valley, and has finally shown some welcome but rather belated empathy with the people of Benue State. We look forward to seeing the Presidency visit several communities in the Benue Valley who have also suffered terror attacks.

We are pained to see that while the Presidency’s visit was handled by flight into Makurdi with a Nigerian Air Force plane, the same Air Force and all its arsenal, could not be deployed to protect and to provide surveillance to protect the lives of the hundreds wasted by terrorists who presumably travelled by boat and on foot over terrain that could be easily seen from the air. We call on the Federal Government and the International Community to launch an inquiry into the Nigerian Air Force’s failure to take all steps necessary to prevent and forestall these attacks – this failure resulted in the loss of many lives and the displacement of tens of thousands.

We call on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Benue Valley States’ Emergency Management Agencies and the international community to assist the affected communities by publishing the exact numbers of those displaced by these attacks and including these figures in the Displacement Tracking Matrix for Nigeria – without accurate data, we cannot address the problems.

We are glad to see that Makurdi’s airfield is still functional and trust that part of the rehabilitation for affected Benue communities will involve the operation of commercial flights to Makurdi to open up the state for the receipt of sorely needed aid and to grant easier access to farmers for rebuilding of the state’s devastated economies.

We hope that the Vice President and his team will also visit communities in Zone C like Aila, in Agatu and speedily address the breakdown of law and order whereby, despite the passage of an anti-grazing law, cattle are roaming on the rice fields of the communities and destroying their livelihoods. This will help to address the suspicions voiced at the stakeholders meeting, and vehemently denied by the Vice President, that there is a genocidal agenda against the people of the Benue Valley.

We note the sum of NGN10billion from our commonwealth, set aside by the Presidency for rehabilitation of affected communities and emphatically state that this sum is NOT a substitute for a single Nigerian life and is no where near enough for the sheer scale of loss of life, injury, trauma and damage to the lives of the Benue people and their communities. We also trust that this is not an effort to buy the votes of a people in difficulty who have been impoverished by the triple devils of poor governance, floods and terror. Money will not buy security. A responsible, empathetic and proactive government will ensure effective security.

We call on the Federal Government to pay compensation to the affected communities, farmers and families who have suffered so much loss and deprivation at the hands of terrorists.

We call on the Federal Government to allocate more of our commonwealth to Benue and other affected states to rebuild affected communities and to work directly with communities, CSOs, the international community and other stakeholders to ensure that these funds are not diverted by federal, state and local government agencies for elections and private interests.

We call for more efficient, proactive and impartial security measures to be put in place to protect the lives of farmers.

We call for a register of all those we have lost in the Benue Valley and memorials for those lost in these terror attacks so that we will say a resounding NEVER AGAIN across the Benue Valley.

We call for justice for those murdered by these terrorists -the Federal Government and the international community MUST fish out, as a matter of urgency, the funders of the terrorists responsible for the killings across the Benue Valley. Justice must be done speedily and be seen to be so done. For without justice, there can be no lasting peace.

We stand solidly behind the Government of Nigeria as it seeks justice for those killed in the Benue Valley and rebuilds the affected communities and are committed to working with all stakeholders to bring about lasting peace and prosperity to the region and Nigeria.

Signed:

Benue Valley Professionals Network

The Benue-We-Deserve Foundation

CEE-HOPE

FEED-Africa Foundation

Sesor Empowerment Foundation

THE CRISIS IN THE MIDDLE BELT: A JOINT CIVIL SOCIETY COMMUNIQUE - ISSUED IN ABUJA ON MONDAY, APRIL 30, 2018

The trajectory of herdsmen killings in Nigeria in the past 5 years has risen exponentially with monumental loss of lives, livelihoods and property. For the most part, the destruction associated with this spiraling crisis of violence and mass killings has been grossly under-reported. In spite of the gross underreporting, in Benue State alone between 2013 and 2016, official reports have estimated that 1,878 persons were killed, 222 disappeared and 750 grievously wounded. This number included 526 women, of whom 200 (38%) were pregnant and another 231 (44%) were nursing mothers. In the first quarter of 2018, well over 600 persons were killed in Benue State. In January and February of 2018, the Benue State Emergency Management Agency, BSEMA, recorded 169,922 internally displaced. The killings affect 12 of the 23 LGAs in the State and over 10% of the population of the State are directly affected. 

Other states in the Middle-Belt region: Plateau, Taraba, Nassarawa, Adamawa, Kwara, Kaduna and Kogi have also been impacted by this crisis and have recorded a combined number of causalities almost equal to that of Benue state. 

In the 17 years since 2001, the African Centre for Strategic Studies estimates that over 60,000 have been killed in this rising violence in the Middle Belt, representing a yearly average of over 3,500 killed. Beyond the Middle Belt, the footprint of violent mass killings in Nigeria extends to Zamfara State, for example, which has recorded well over 120 related killings between January and April 2018.

There has been no accountability for these killings. Instead, they seem to have been accompanied by impunity. In response to these killings, government has offered excuses. They have blamed foreigners or arms from Libya. Earlier in the year, the Defence Minister appeared to justify these killings, blaming them on interference with traditional grazing routes or on the adoption of laws in some states outlawing open-grazing. Such explanations are disingenuous, disreputable, and disgraceful.

Nigeria’s 1999 constitution makes clear that the primary purpose of government is the safety, security and welfare of all who live within its territory. Section 17(2)(c) of the same constitution commands that “governmental actions shall be humane”. 

While Nigerians are being killed our communities and livelihoods laid to ruin, politicians at all levels are conducting politics, setting up campaigns and carrying on with no regard for their constitutional duties of humaneness or empathy. The government has shown itself unwilling or unable to confront these killings and to put an end to them. By so doing, it has abdicated its constitutional duty to guarantee the safety, security and wellbeing of all who live in Nigeria.

The chronic mass killings in the Middle-Belt and other parts of Nigeria, such as Zamfara State, have become a blot the collective conscience of our Nigerian humanity. They have also given rise to mass displacement, creating crises civic, humanitarian, and food security crises:

•  In terms of civics, hundreds of thousands of voters are being displaced from their places of primary residence. This is a danger to the security of the 2019 elections.

•  The displacement denies the victims their livelihoods, creating dependencies for humanitarians that are presently not being addressed adequately or at all. 

•  As the victims are displaced, farms are laid fallow and young people who work them are forced into internal exile, leading to a food security crisis. 

In turn and together, this situation now endangers the very existence and coexistence of Nigeria as never before since the end of the civil war. A country like Nigeria already confronting mass casualty violence in the north-east region cannot afford the levity with which the political leadership has approached the situation in the Middle Belt.

As Nigerian citizens and members of organized civil society, we call on the Federal government to live up to its primary responsibility of protecting lives and property and promoting the welfare of all who live in Nigeria. We therefore demand from the executive and legislative arms of government, clear, measurable steps to:

1.  end the impunity that has led to the spiral of the conflict in the Middle-Belt by immediate ordering of a full investigation into the killings to fish out and bringing the perpetrators of the crisis to justice;

2.  to ensure the provision of humanitarian aid and assistance to communities displaced by the crisis;

3.  ensure an urgent accounting of the missing and dead, and an estimation of the loss incurred by individuals and impacted communities; and

4.  mobilise the resources and partnerships to make it possible for people of goodwill to take a stake in bringing the crises in the Middle Belt to an end. 

As civil society, we hereby commit ourselves to action to address evidence gathering for possible accountability for mass atrocities in the Middle Belt of Nigeria as well as for humanitarian action to alleviate the suffering of the victims. For this purpose, we are establishing A Nigerian CSO Crisis Action on the Middle Belt to explore collaborative and complementary options for constructive action on the crisis of mass killings in the region. 

At this time, stand in solidarity with our fellow citizens in Benue and Zamfara States across the (other) states of the Middle Belt region of Nigeria. To them, we reiterate that you are not alone and that the injustice you suffer is our collective shame and pain. 

We call on all concerned Nigerians to join us as we organize towards a national day of mourning and remembrance later in May to memorialize all whom we have lost and demand for government that has the capacity to re-discover – if it can - the reason for its existence.