Once again, Benue State has been thrown into mourning. In what has become a chillingly familiar tragedy, at least 100 people were killed between Friday evening and Saturday morning in Yelewata, a community in the Guma Local Government Area. Eyewitnesses recount harrowing scenes of entire families locked in their homes and set ablaze. Victims were burnt beyond recognition, homes reduced to ashes, and survivors left to count their dead and salvage what remains of their lives from rubble and sorrow.

This is not an isolated incident. It is the latest chapter in a grim and unending narrative of violence that has plagued Benue for more than a decade. The state has become a theatre of recurring grief, where families wake each day unsure if they will see the next. What began years ago as sporadic clashes between herders and farmers has grown into a full-blown humanitarian crisis marked by massacres, displacement, and a frightening collapse of trust in the institutions meant to provide protection.

The roots of the crisis run deep. Between 2011 and 2014, communities in Agatu, Guma, and Logo experienced waves of deadly violence. In 2016, Agatu alone lost hundreds of lives in one of the most devastating attacks on record. The 2018 New Year’s Day killings in Guma and Logo shocked the nation and led the Benue State Government to enact the Open Grazing Prohibition Law. But rather than ending the violence, it was met with further bloodshed. From 2020 to 2022, banditry escalated, and attacks spread to Kwande, Katsina-Ala, and Gwer West, leaving over a thousand dead and swelling IDP camps with families stripped of shelter and livelihood. In 2023 and throughout 2024, federal assurances offered no meaningful protection. Already, more than 200 lives were lost this year before the fresh horror in Yelewata.

What has followed each wave of killing is a pattern of condemnation, condolence, and retreat. Federal responses have remained largely reactive, with security operatives arriving long after communities have been reduced to rubble. Arrests of perpetrators are rare. The silence from the nation’s leadership during moments of intense sorrow has not only disheartened the people but bred suspicion of neglect or complicity.

The people of Benue are not asking for the impossible. They seek a permanent and well-equipped security presence in vulnerable areas, the dismantling of militias and armed herders, the enforcement of laws designed to protect lives and property, and the prosecution of those who have murdered with impunity. Families who have lost everything are crying out for support, not only to survive but to rebuild their lives with dignity. The collapse of farming activities in many parts of Benue, which has long been the food basket of the nation, poses a wider economic threat to the country if urgent support is not provided.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu must now treat this crisis as a national emergency. This is not just about Benue. It is about the sanctity of human life in Nigeria. The killings in Yelewata demand a strong and coordinated national response. The security agencies must be given clear instructions and be held accountable for the safety of lives and communities. The presidency must show that it is not just moved by tragedy, but committed to justice. The National Assembly must treat this as a legislative priority, addressing the core issues of land management, rural security, and the unchecked flow of arms across the country. Regional cooperation among state governments in the North-Central must also be strengthened to tackle this problem from all fronts.

It is time for every voice of reason, within and beyond Nigeria, to rise in support of the people of Benue. The pain of Yelewata must not go the way of past massacres, quietly buried and soon forgotten. The grief is raw, the wounds are fresh, and the calls for justice are loud.

Enough is enough.

The Tinubu-led leadership must do the needful. The people of Benue have suffered too much, for too long. What they deserve now is not sympathy, but action. What they need is not another visit after the blood has dried, but a decisive, sustained response that ends this horror for good. To delay is to invite more tragedy. To act is to finally honour the dead by protecting the living. The time is now.