Governor Hyacinth Alia has denied that the Federal Government has not intervened to protect the people of Benue State from violent, bloodthirsty marauders.
The killings in the food-producing state have sparked widespread outcry, with many dissatisfied with the government’s response.
The governor said on Monday, while appearing on a morning show, that “If he (President Bola Tinubu) didn’t have an understanding of what is going on, he wouldn’t be giving us full support.”
“Seventeen local governments out of 23 were under siege, and then we fought it down to nine local governments. We fought it down to six and now to three. It came down because of the full support we got from the Federal Government.
“The last time we had some severe attacks, three security units were assigned to us from the Federal Government. They came in, and there was a huge shift. “Those who had occupied the spaces in the local governments had to leave,” he stated.
Benue, a food-producing state in Nigeria’s North-Central zone, has been under constant siege by suspected herders for some time.
The killings have lingered for years, with some attributing them to inter-communal conflicts as well as a struggle for land supremacy between indigenous agrarian inhabitants and nomadic cattle rearers.
However, the killings have continued uninterrupted in recent weeks. On June 15, 2025, alleged herders attacked the Yelewata village in the state, killing at least 59 civilians at night. Among those murdered were military and civil defence personnel fighting to protect the community’s residents.
Less than two months earlier, in April 2025, accused herders killed approximately 60 citizens in the state’s Ukum and Logo local governments.
Unfortunately, the killing spree continued in May 2025 with at least 42 people confirmed killed by suspected herders in the Gwer West LGA of the state.
Pope Leo XIV has since condemned the recent “terrible Massacre” in Benue, describing it as “extreme cruelty”. The killings have also attracted widespread protest and national outrage, as many Nigerians are utterly displeased with the way the Federal Government has been handling the situation.
Opposition leaders Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi have also faulted the government’s handling of the security crisis, calling on the Tinubu administration to live up to its constitutional mandate to protect the lives and property of citizens.
Governor Alia sympathised with the people of the state whose loved ones had been killed, who had been displaced and who lost their farmlands. He, however, said the Federal Government has been supportive of the state, as shown in the recent site visit of the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt Gen Olufemi Oluyede.
On the history of the killings, the governor said, “Before now, we were talking about the farmer-herder crisis. And now, it graduates from there, and it became the case where the herders came in, but the armed men were amongst them, and we tagged them ‘the armed herders’.
The cleric said the suspicion of collusion between the aggressors or invaders and residents of the troubled local governments was not an impossibility.
