Nigerians say peace without justice is empty, as President Tinubu faces criticism for delayed, politicised response to Benue killings

[dropcap]E[/dropcap]veryone is crying out for peace, yes,
None is crying out for justice.
I don’t want no peace,
I need equal rights and justice.
Got to get it! Equal rights and justice.
I’m fighting for it! Equal rights and justice. – Lyrics from the 1977 album title song, Equal Rights, of Jamaican reggae legend Peter Tosh (1944-87).

Also read: President Tinubu forms peace committee after Benue massacre leaves 200 dead

WHAT informs the tardy, ticky-tacky, trite policies of governments when Nigerians are attacked, hundreds killed and their farms are devastated?

Are there policies, in these instances, what instruct that the President must ignore the attacks, drag his feet until people start shouting at him, and he makes the trip with obvious reluctance?

Does Nigeria have a play book from where Presidents, notably elected on the All Progressives Congress platform copy this distressing behaviour?

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had no business being around Benue State if all he had to tell the people with, all the sorrow, depression and uncertainties around them, was nothing.

Tinubu was exception for haranguing President Goodluck Jonathan with social media tweets after tweets blaming him for doing nothing about insecurity. Has Tinubu forgotten?

Here is the summary of Tinubu addressing a people who have lost so many lives, and know that the show in Makurdi was not a guarantee that another attack was not looming:

a. I had to cancel my scheduled visited to Kaduna State, to commission projects by the state government, to be here.

He possibly expected a round of applause. Such great sacrifice that the President made. Coming really inconvenienced him.

He must have trekked from Abuja to Makurdi, where school children lined the streets, under the rain, waiting for his arrival. Some of those children could be sick now.

Why did it take the President five days after the killings to visit? He was busy in Abuja commissioning water and road projects – Benue could wait, someone reasoned, justifying it with the fact that the President had no powers to raise the dead. Why the hurry?

b. Live in peace and harmony with each other. Reconcile with each other.

Tinubu could have copied those lines from Buhari who in 2018 visited Benue 12 weeks after New Year killings that that lasted 11 days and claimed more lives, according to villagers, than the 73 buried in Makurdi.

“Your Excellency, the Governor, and all the leaders here, I am appealing to you to try to restrain your people. I assure you that the Police, the Department of State Security and other security agencies had been directed to ensure that all those behind the mayhem get punished. I ask you in the name of God to accommodate your country men. You can also be assured that I am just as worried, and concerned with the situation,’ Buhari told Benue leaders in Abuja, two weeks after the killings.

Note that the duty of restraint was imposed on those who were mourning their dead.
Something worse happened.

Buhari’s spokesman Femi Adeshina schooled Benue people on another occasion, “Ancestral attachment? You can only have ancestral attachment when you are alive. If you are dead , how does the attachment matter? The National Economic Council that recommended ranching didn’t just legislate it; there were recommendations.

So, if your State does not have land for ranching, it is understandable. Not every State will have land for ranches. But, where you have land and you can do something, please do for peace. What will the land be used for if those who own it are dead at the end of the day?

The same Benue is still the issue today.

In 2025, Tinubu compares our lives with cattle and came to the sound judgement that Nigerian lives were more important than cattle.

The event on Wednesday was a show once an official announcement by Benue State Government asked support groups to turn up in their colours to give the President a colourful and rousing reception.

It was a political party rally. Was it a surprise that the condolence visit was bereft of the sobriety of mourning more than 200 people?

“The value of human life is greater than that of a cow. We are here to govern, not to bury,” Tinubu told the stakeholders meeting.

To Governor Hyacinth Alia, “Your political enemies don’t want you to succeed. Are you just realising that?”. Politics, always politics

Great as Tinubu’s sudden wisdom seems in realising the importance of human life, he may be re-starting the human life-cow debate.

June last year, a ranking Senator debated on the floor of the Senate that cattle were citizens of Nigeria and have constitutional rights. He was pained at the denial of citizenship rights to cattle. The debate was on a bill for ranching.

Look at his pedigree, my assumption is that pedigree still has meaning. He was Governor of Kebbi State for eight years, was elected a Senator in 2007, a position he left to be President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s Minister of Federal Capital Territory for two years. He has had an uninterrupted tenure in the Senate since 2015.

His name? Adamu Aliero.

Aliero is well-educated. The 1980 graduate of political science knows Nigeria well enough and the damage that open grazing of cows has done around the country.

His service in the Nigeria Immigration and in the Customs and Excise Service took him to different parts of Nigeria. He wasted the experience in preference for a parochial, dim debate on shared citizenship with cows.

“Cows are not citizens of Nigeria, Senator Aliero, are you arguing with me? The Section you are referring to is talking about citizens of Nigeria. And cows are not citizens of Nigeria. Cows can come from Niger, Chad or anywhere,” Senate President Obong Godswill Akpabio, shouted.

Tinubu has the likes of Aliero to contend with as ranching is proposed again as a solution to the wasting of lives that is hinged on open grazing.

In the light of these staged confusions, Nigerians are not asking for equal rights, as Peter Tosh sang 48 years ago. equal rights with cows?

What we want is justice. The emptiness of peace and harmony stares us daily in the face. How do the living reconcile with those they killed?

The face of the woman tending her child in the hospital, a child who will grow up with one hand chopped off by those who kill and maim without hinderance, speaks of disdain and anger at the Tinubu crowd that flooded the hospital in the false sympathy that cannot provide solutions to the killings.

She simply turned her face away from the visitors, attired as if they were celebrating the event.

Nigerians, everywhere, want justice. The killings are very wild spread. Words will not bring about justice.

Too many reasons are given for the attacks that started as farmers-herders clashes to genocidal attacks, and are also by terrorists. No reasons are enough to allow their persistence and the patience of the government.

Having known the reasons for the attacks, what is the government doing? Waiting for the same attacks to repeat the same message with the same sentiments?

For starts, Tinubu can punish those who refuse his orders to arrest the killers. There are too many excuses that are being turned to reasons.

The criminals perpetuating these mayhems no matter who they are, or where they issue from, should be arrested, and punished for their crimes? Or do we now have laws that refuse to punish criminals because they are foreigners or herders?

Also read: Kiddwaya ignites nationwide movement to rescue Benue attack victims

Nigerians are tired of these tragedies being turned to comedies with upscaled expertise. Now that Tinubu has spoken of the importance of human beings, we want to see his deeds reflect it.

ISIGUZ0 is a major commentator on minor issues