In the wake of the tragic attacks that claimed over 300 lives in Yelewata, Guma Local Government Area of Benue State, Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Christopher Musa, has identified the root causes of the persistent violence and called for urgent political intervention to address them.
During a high-level visit to the affected communities, General Musa highlighted three critical drivers of the crisis: land disputes between indigenes and non-indigenes, unregulated movement of livestock, that these issues, while often framed as farmer-herder clashes, are deeply political and require non-military solutions.
“If a farmer is standing and an animal enters his land, that’s not a clash—it’s trespass,” General Musa stated. “We must find a way to manage animal movement. If the animals don’t move, we don’t have a problem. And if rustling stops, the violence will reduce significantly.”
The CDS also acknowledged the limitations of military intervention in resolving what he described as fundamentally political and social conflicts. He urged political leaders at all levels to engage in dialogue and policy reforms that address land ownership, community integration, and livestock management.
In response to the massacre, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is scheduled to visit Benue State, while service chiefs have already been deployed to coordinate security efforts and support affected communities.