Benue State continues to reel from a string of violent attacks that have left hundreds dead and entire communities devastated.
The most recent assault on Yelwata, which claimed over 200 lives in a single weekend, follows closely on the heels of an earlier massacre in April that left more than 50 people dead.
EDITOR’S PICKS
These recurring killings have exposed the multiple layers of conflict fuelling the bloodshed.
As grief spreads across Benue and the middlebelt, so too do questions. Why do these attacks continue unabated? Who are the perpetrators? And what, or who, is enabling them? In this report, EKO HOT BLOG explores all the questions.
Sabotage Within the Military?
During a visit to the ruins of Yelwata on Monday, Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, made a startling revelation: saboteurs may be operating within the military itself.
“This is one killing too many,” Musa said as he surveyed the scorched remains of homes and farms. “We need to change our strategy, look inward… If you see the pattern of killings and slaughtering, it means there is an insider.”
General Musa’s comments suggest that the precision of the recent attacks, where specific households were targeted and torched, may not be coincidental. His suspicion is that some military personnel have been leaking operational intelligence to bandits, effectively aiding and abetting the violence they are meant to quell.
“As we were going round, it became obvious that the killing and burnings were targeted,” he added.
The military chief’s comments mirror those of Borno State Governor Babagana Zulum, during a television interview in May 2025.
“We have informants and collaborators within the Nigerian armed forces, within the politicians, and within the communities. What we shall do is to strengthen our intelligence and to deal with them ruthlessly,” Zulum claimed. “Let’s remove contractocracy. In six months, we can put an end to this madness. We need not politicise insecurity.”
A New Kind of War
Governor Hyacinth Alia of Benue State also weighed in, offering a sobering assessment of the challenge at hand.
Appearing on AIT’s Focus Nigeria on Tuesday, the governor warned that the attackers have adopted guerrilla-style warfare
, a form of hit-and-run insurgency that makes tracking and apprehension extraordinarily difficult.
“We’re talking about bandits and terrorists who have come to a mystifying frame of guerrilla warfare,” Alia said. “They come, hit, and go back. So we cannot identify them.”
While acknowledging the federal government’s intelligence support, the governor stressed that the complex, fast-evolving nature of the violence requires even more strategic depth. “With the federal government’s continued support… I think we are going to do even some more,” he added. “We will identify those people, apprehend them, and create a new narrative for our three local governments and, in fact, the state.”
But Alia also pointed to another, less visible driver of insecurity: political disunity within his own party.
“There is another layer to the challenges,” he said. “The non-cooperation of some so-called major stakeholders, the disunity and disharmony within the ruling APC camp in the state, is quite unfortunate.”
According to the governor, political infighting and lack of cohesion among top actors in the All Progressives Congress (APC) have compromised the state’s ability to mount a unified response to the crisis.
“Not Herder-Farmer Clashes”: A New Narrative Emerges
Further complicating the narrative is the position of the North Central Peace Advocates, a regional peacebuilding group that is rejecting the long-standing belief that the killings stem from herder-farmer disputes.
“The killings in Benue are not herder-farmer clashes. That narrative is false and dangerously misleading,” said Frank Utor, the group’s coordinator, in a statement on Monday.
Describing the wave of violence as a “politically motivated campaign of terror”, Utor alleged that foreign-backed terrorists are orchestrating the attacks in a systematic effort to destabilise Benue and other parts of Nigeria’s north-central region.
“Hundreds have been killed and entire communities displaced in a systematic effort to destabilise Benue and other parts of the north-central,” Utor said.
“The killings in Benue are not herder-farmer clashes. That narrative is false and dangerously misleading.”
A Region Under Siege
The convergence of these perspectives — insider sabotage, tactical insurgency, political disunity, and foreign-backed destabilisation — paints a chilling picture of the forces converging on Benue State.
FURTHER READING
And while the federal and state governments continue to pledge action, many residents are losing faith that protection will come in time.
Philip Ibitoye is a Special Correspondent with EKO HOT BLOG. Click here to find daily analysis and critical insight on trending issues in Lagos and other parts of Nigeria.
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