Benue Killings Not Farmer, Herder Clash But Politically Motivated — Group

A group, the North Central Peace Advocates (NCPA) has raised the alarm over what it described as the politically motivated killings in Benue State.

It warned that continued mischaracterisation of the crisis could further endanger national security and hinder effective response.

NCPA, in a statement in Abuja on Monday by its Coordinator, Frank Utor, condemned the ongoing violence in Benue, which has claimed hundreds of lives, displaced communities, and derailed years of peacebuilding efforts.

While expressing solidarity with grieving families, the group faulted the recurring description of the attacks as “herders-farmers clashes,” calling it a dangerous and misleading narrative that masked the true identity of the perpetrators.

“We must be unequivocal, the persistent framing of these killings as herders versus farmers clashes is not only false but dangerously misleading,” the statement read.

“The killers are not herdsmen. They do not rear cattle. They rustle cattle from legitimate herders to fund their operations and exploit the confusion to destabilize society.”

According to the group, evidence on the ground and available intelligence point to the presence of foreign-backed, well-trained terror cells operating across Benue, Plateau, and other parts of the North Central region, with a clear objective to wage war against indigenous communities.

“They don’t come on donkeys, camels, or horses. They ride in on motorcycles, heavily armed, to launch attacks and retreat to their camps,” he claimed.

NCPA accused successive governments of misdiagnosing the crisis by mislabeling the perpetrators as herders or bandits, thereby denying security agencies the clarity needed to confront them as terrorists.

“This mischaracterisation is one of the greatest obstacles to ending the Benue and North Central crisis. It deprives security agencies of the legal and operational clarity needed to confront the threat decisively,” he said.

It further maintained that calling for the Benue State Government to engage in dialogue with the attackers while the Federal Government did not recognise perpetrators as terrorists amounts to a dereliction of duty.

“To ask the Benue State Government to look for the killers of hundreds of people and dialogue with them is akin to abdicating government’s responsibility to secure our communities and bring the killers to justice,” Utor said.

While the group acknowledged President Bola Tinubu’s efforts to restore peace across Nigeria, it insisted that lasting solutions would only come when the government recognises the insurgency in the region as a full-scale terror operation and gives the necessary orders for a military crackdown.

“Unless the government courageously interprets this war for what it is, the call for dialogue will be futile,” he said.

The NCPA warned that the continued attacks were designed to ignite anarchy, erode public trust in governance, and plunge the country into lawlessness.