
With each passing day, the red soil of Nigeria’s “Food Basket” is soaked with the blood of its own people—farmers, mothers, children, men in their prime—cut down not by natural disaster, but by human wickedness. Entire communities lie in ruins. Families are being wiped out in silence. Dreams are being buried with the dead.
Now, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu visits.
He arrives to greet the mourning, to tour the ashes, to speak of peace in a land where peace has been forgotten. But with all due respect, we must ask the question that millions of Benue people are whispering through their tears: Will this visit bring back those already lost?
The answer is painfully clear—it will not.
No convoy, no siren, no government statement can reverse death. And yet, that is all we have seen—visits after massacres, speeches after slaughter, and committees after communities have been burned to the ground. The cycle is familiar, and so is the silence that follows once the cameras leave.
Where is the outrage? Where is the accountability?
Benue is not just a flashpoint on a security map. It is a state of flesh and blood, of farmers and families. But today, its people live like refugees in their own land, sleeping with one eye open, clutching children to their chest as gunshots pierce the night. These are not isolated incidents—they are part of a pattern. A calculated and unrelenting campaign of terror that continues to thrive under the watch of a government that seems either unwilling or unable to end it.
President Tinubu’s visit should not be reduced to another box checked on a political tour. It must be a turning point. Because behind the politics are the graves of children who never made it to school, mothers who died shielding their babies, elders slaughtered in the homes they built with their bare hands. What happened to the promise of security? What happened to the humanity of governance?
The bitter truth is this: No matter how many times the president visits, unless real action is taken—swift justice, firm security presence, and lasting protection for vulnerable communities—Benue will continue to mourn. And no visit can dry the tears of a mother whose child was shot in the back while fleeing from horror.
So, as the President’s convoy leaves Benue, let him not forget the cries that followed him. Let him carry their echoes to Aso Rock and return, not with words, but with will—the political will to end this nightmare.
Because until that happens, no visit—no matter how grand—can bring back the dead. But action? Action might just save the living.
Benue is crying. Nigeria, are you listening?
By: Godwin Offor