The National Secretary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Ajibola Basiru, says President Bola Tinubu can’t take sides in the crisis rocking Benue, one of Nigeria’s major food-producing states.
“As a statesman, you don’t expect the president to be taking sides with anybody in the conflict,” the lawyer said on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief programme on Friday.
“He is supposed to have a dispassionate consideration of the issue and then be able to charge the various state actors to address the various challenges.”
Basiru, a former Senate spokesman, said the president’s visit to Benue on Wednesday, June 18, 2025, should not be used against him.
The APC chieftain said the president gave a platform for a high-ranking traditional ruler in Benue, Tor Tiv V, James Ayatse, to voice the concerns of the people.
“The fact that the president gave (an) opportunity to Tor Tiv to give the address which commentators now say resonates with the concerns of the moment has predicated and also validated the fact that a platform was created by the visit of the president to have different perspectives to what is happening in Benue State,” Basiru said.
The APC scribe said as a statesman, the president won’t pander to the northern or southern sides in the Benue situation but focus on the solution to the challenges.
Basiru said, “As to people who try to create division in Nigeria by saying the president pander to northern element or southern element.
“As far as we are concerned, the president is a Nigerian; he is a detribalised Nigerian and he has been able to come on the spot in Makurdi to address the concerns about the lives and property of the Nigerian people.
“Of course, in his preference, the lives of the people are more precious than the issue of property which cows signify.”
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Benue, a food-producing state in Nigeria’s North-Central zone, has been under heavy attacks by suspected herdsmen for some time. The killings have lingered for years, with some linking them to the quest for land dominance between the original agrarian dwellers and nomadic cattle rearers. But the Tor Tiv described the attacks as a “calculated, well-planned, full-scale genocidal invasion and land grabbing campaign by herder terrorists and bandits”.
However, the killings in the last few weeks have been without a break. At least over 160 residents were confirmed killed in a series of attacks by suspected herdsmen who wreaked havoc in different communities in the state within two months.
Last Friday, scores of residents in the Yelewata area in the state were killed and over 3000 persons displaced during an overnight attack by suspected herdsmen. Though the government put the number of slain persons at 59, civil rights groups claimed that about 200 deaths were recorded.
The killings in Benue have attracted national outrage and global attention from Pope Leo XIV, who condemned the “terrible massacre” and called for an end to it.
After a barrage of criticisms from opposition arrowheads, the president visited Benue on Wednesday and charged the service chiefs to end the bloodletting in the state and arrest the perpetrators.
