We Must Hold Leaders Accountable,’ Atiku Condemns Fresh Benue Killings
Amada Paul Israel@israelamadapaul172464
1 month ago
BENUE, 2025
I smelled the fire before the news,
Before the headlines whispered through tired mouths,
Before politicians wore black suits
And offered silence in the name of peace.
Yelewata burned while the world slept
A hundred souls locked in homes,
Torched like dry yam fields in harmattan.
Mothers curled over babies,
And the fire did not ask their names.
Aondona wept in late May.
The land drank the blood of twenty more
Not warriors, just people,
Slain like shadows in their own compounds.
The priest at Ahume clutched his rosary,
Crucified not by doubt, but by bullets.
And in Tyolaha and Tse-Ubiam,
Blood formed rivers the earth could not swallow.
March gave no mercy.
In Katsina-Ala, the drums beat for the dead
Utange, Dikpo, Kpav… all remembered by wailing.
Fifteen bodies in one night,
Buried with prayers and no promises.
Gwer West, again, again
Ten corpses lined like forgotten verses
In a hymn no one dares to finish.
Apa mourned a dozen more,
While vultures circled and leaders looked away.
They call it “farmer-herder conflict”
To wrap murder in diplomatic ribbons.
But how do you call it a clash
When only one side buries its children?
They compensate the living
With envelopes and lies.
But no coins can cover
The cost of a father burned alive.
O Benue, the river runs red again.
Your fields were meant for cassava, not corpses.
Your granaries, for yams not orphans.
And your sky, for rain not smoke.
How many more?
Before the soil says enough?
Before the air stops echoing gunshots,
Before prayers stop drowning in blood?
Oh God, if You are watching,
Send angels that don't just carry harps,
But swords.
Send justice like a flood.
Let the bones of Agatu rise and speak.
Let the ghosts of June cry out in the wind.
For Benue still bleeds
And the silence is worse than the slaughter
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