23/10/2025
There is systematic Killing in Nigeria’s Middle Belt
By Onyedikachi Madueke
On 13 June 2025, a silent crisis escalated in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. In coordinated attacks across communities in Benue State, Northcentral region, more than 200 people lost their lives. The response was tepid. Nigeria’s President, Bola Tinubu, issued a statement only after Pope Leo XIV publicly prayed for the victims. The pope described the attack against the predominantly Christian community in Benue State as “a terrible massacre.” The Nigerian president’s framing of the violence as a “herder-farmer clash” was fiercely rejected by local leaders.
The most significant criticism came from Tor Tiv, Professor James Ortese Iorzua Ayatse, the chairman of the Benue State Traditional Rulers Council, who also serves as the paramount ruler of the Tiv ethnic nation. In his speech addressing the Nigerian president, he referred to the violence as a “full-scale genocidal invasion and land-grabbing campaign” rather than a mere communal dispute as the president framed it. He emphasised that these incidents are not isolated but indicative of a much deeper crisis affecting North-Central Nigeria.
Communities across the North-Central region in Plateau, Nasarawa, and Southern Kaduna have suffered devastating attacks that follow a chillingly similar script—night raids, mass killings, razed villages, and mass displacements. Between 2023 and May 2025, over 6,800 people have been murdered in Benue State, while over 2600 were killed in Plateau State in coordinated assaults attributed to suspected armed groups, including herders. In Nasarawa’s Doma and Awe, recurring violence has displaced tens of thousands, many of whom still live in temporary camps with no clear prospects of return. These incidents are often explained away as “local clashes,” but victims across the region increasingly describe them as systematic assaults on indigenous Christian farming communities.
This shared experience has fostered a sense of collective siege among Middle Belt minorities—mostly Christian and ethnically non-Fulani—who feel that the Nigerian state has failed to acknowledge the,... Full video on Facebook
