By Malik Samuel
For years, the North-Central region of Nigeria, particularly Benue and Plateau states, has been the epicentre of brutal violence, marked by systematic killings, mass displacement, and the destruction of entire communities. The victims of this violence are largely agrarian communities, whose livelihoods have been shattered by incessant attacks primarily from armed herder militia groups. What began as resource-based disputes over land and water access has transformed into large-scale criminal violence, underpinned by climate pressures, rapid population growth, ethnic-religious tensions, and, more importantly, state failure. The result has been catastrophic for the region’s socio-economic fabric, especially considering Benue’s reputation as Nigeria’s food basket.
One of the most horrifying examples of this violence was the June 2025 massacre in Yelwata, Benue State, where over 100 people were reportedly killed in one of many coordinated attacks on farming communities. Similarly, the Christmas massacres of December 2023 in Plateau State saw almost 200 killed in cold blood.
These atrocities are not isolated incidents; they are part of a systematic campaign of killings and forced displacement. Research has demonstrated a clear pattern of state failure, impunity of attackers who continue to terrorise communities with little fear of arrest or prosecution, reprisal attacks, and weak enforcement of laws such as Benue’s Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law. This entrenched violence is eroding the economic base of the region, threatening national food security, and hollowing out trust between citizens and the Nigerian state.
READ ALSO: Benue Massacre: What next after Tinubu’s visit?
Lawlessness
Despite repeated assurances from successive governments, the Nigerian state has failed to demonstrate either the political will or the operational competence required to end this carnage. If President Tinubu’s administration fails to break this cycle of violence, his legacy may be remembered not as economic reforms but also presiding over one of Nigeria’s most tragic chapters of preventable violence.
Flailing state response
President Tinubu, like his predecessors, has responded with symbolic gestures, deploying senior security officials to conflict zones, making public condemnations, and pledging action. Significantly, he became the first president to visit the state because of the conflict. Before the president’s arrival, visits by heads of security – Chief of Defence Staff, Inspector General of Police, and the National Security Adviser – did little to inspire confidence among affected communities. Like in other states dealing with insecurity, these gestures have become routine political theatre, offering no meaningful comfort to survivors and no deterrence to perpetrators.
From Zamfara to Benue, the story is the same: political visits, fleeting deployments of security forces, and a return to business as usual once the national headlines fade. Like the president asked the police and other security chiefs in Benue, “how come no arrests have been made?” Shortly afterward, the police announced that suspects had been apprehended. This raises critical questions: Why did it take a presidential prompt for action to be taken? And why are arrests absent in numerous other cases where no such directive was issued?
The failure of Nigeria’s response is compounded by operational deficiencies. Local vigilantes, often armed with little more than locally made rifles, are no match for the sophisticated military-grade weapons carried by the attackers. Nigerian security agencies, meanwhile, have repeatedly failed to intercept armed groups even as they move in large convoys of motorcycles, attacking villages with impunity before disappearing into the forests, which probably explains the president’s bemusement.
The repeated inability, or refusal, of security forces to pursue and apprehend these attackers has led to growing suspicions among affected communities that elements of the state may be complicit in allowing the violence to continue. It is little wonder that affected communities increasingly view the Nigerian state as either incapable or unwilling to protect them.
The result of this broken social contract is not just the loss of lives and property, it is the collapse of confidence in the Nigerian project itself. The humanitarian fallout is severe. Displacement camps in Benue are overcrowded, poorly resourced, and often unsafe. Food insecurity is on the rise. Educational, health, and sanitation infrastructure has deteriorated. And yet, when citizens peacefully protest these failures, as they did recently in Benue, they are met not with empathy, but with tear gas and harassment. Such disproportionate repression of lawful dissent reflects a government increasingly more adept at silencing its citizens than protecting them.
What Nigeria faces in Benue and Plateau is not just a security crisis, it is a situation that tilts towards a legitimacy crisis. The government’s repeated failures to protect lives, enforce laws, or provide justice can erode the very foundation of government’s constitutional authority. Without decisive, sustained, and structural reforms, the violence in the northcentral region, and elsewhere, risks escalating further, dragging more communities into chaos and undermining whatever fragile economic progress the country hopes to make.
Beyond symbolism
To address the deepening crisis in Benue, Plateau, and other parts of northcentral Nigeria, the Nigerian government must urgently move beyond symbolic gestures and embrace a comprehensive, sustained, and structured strategy to restore security and rebuild trust. Central to this approach is the full and consistent enforcement of existing legal frameworks, including the Benue State Anti-Open Grazing and Ranches Establishment Law. This law was specifically designed to prevent the very type of violent conflict currently unfolding, yet weak enforcement has allowed perpetrators to operate with near-total impunity. Federal security agencies must work in full cooperation with state authorities to ensure that violators are arrested and prosecuted, and that communities are protected, not abandoned.
A complete overhaul of Nigeria’s security architecture is not required but strengthening intelligence gathering and tactical operations are imperative. Investments must be directed toward technological surveillance, including drones, satellite imagery, and geospatial analysis, to enhance the detection and dismantling of armed groups hiding in forests and ungoverned spaces. Nigeria’s experience fighting Boko Haram in the Northeast has demonstrated that forest enclaves can be penetrated when the political will exists. This same commitment is now urgently required in Benue, Plateau, and other hotspots across the northcentral and northwest regions.
Furthermore, the government should accelerate the establishment of state or multilevel policing to empower governors with operational control over security within their territories. Local authorities are often better positioned to respond swiftly to emerging threats, but without control over police operations, their hands remain tied. Recognising the risks of politicisation, such a framework must be accompanied by strong institutional safeguards, including independent oversight bodies, transparent audits, and constitutional provisions enabling federal intervention in cases of abuse. Without a more decentralised and responsive policing system, the Nigerian state will remain reactive and ineffective in the face of coordinated rural violence.
From impunity to enforcement and peacemaking
Equally important is the need for a nationwide disarmament programme targeting militias and criminal groups operating in rural areas under the guise of communal conflicts. Such a programme must be backed by a federal-level judicial inquiry tasked with investigating recurring attacks, exposing the sponsors behind these atrocities, and prosecuting them under the full weight of Nigerian law. Ending impunity is non-negotiable if peace is to be restored.
Finally, addressing the deeper social and communal fractures that fuel this violence will require deliberate peacebuilding initiatives. Religious leaders, traditional rulers, and community stakeholders must be integrated into formal early warning and early response systems, working in close partnership with civil society organisations. These structures can help detect signs of rising tensions and allow for intervention before violence escalates.
Collectively, these measures represent not just a pathway to resolving the violence in northcentral Nigeria, but a blueprint for restoring the legitimacy of the Nigerian state in these communities. Without bold, sustained action anchored in justice, security, and accountability, the cycles of violence will continue, and with them, the erosion of Nigeria’s national stability.
………
Malik Samuel is a senior researcher at Good Governance Africa-Nigeria, based in Abuja, Nigeria. Before joining GGA, he was a researcher with the Institute for Security Studies, specialising in the Boko Haram conflict in the Lake Chad Basin Region. Malik also worked as a conflict researcher with Amnesty International Nigeria. He was also a Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders field communications manager in Northeast Nigeria. Before that, he was an investigative journalist at the Abuja-based International Centre for Investigative Reporting. Malik holds a Master’s in Conflict, Peace, and Security degree from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR).
