Benue massacre: Blame Buhari, Military as Intersociety lauds President Tinubu

By Alphonsus Nweze, Onitsha

The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), has lauded President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for his open dressing down of the Service Chiefs in Benue State when he asked them: “Why have there been no arrest” over the massive killings of defenceless Indigenes and christians in Benue State in their own land.
The group in the statement signed by the chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT) , Nze Emeka Umesgbalasi, said they decided to single out President Tinubu for commendation over his million dollar unanswered question to Nigeria’s security and intelligence chiefs on the systematic and well-coordinated massacre of defenceless Christians in Benue State because that is crux of blood bath in Nigeria.

The President had during his June 18, 2025, visit to Benue State in connection with last week massacre leading to the death of more than 220 defenceless natives and close to 1000 since the beginning of January 2025; fired the million dollar unanswered question to the country’s security and intelligence chiefs who were all present which they could not respond to.
“It is not only that the question threw the physically present security and intelligence chiefs off balance and rattled them including Chief of Defense Staff, Lt Gen Musa, who was not only rattled but appeared to have rushed to his computer and dusted up stored information of “number of terrorists killed (neutralized) and arrested” in Nigeria’s six geopolitical regions “in the past two years” the rights group said.
Intersociety condemned what they called: “despicable and reckless resort to diversionary narratives and tactics by the military whenever serious matters of national security threats or breaches are raised.As a matter of fact, they are nothing short of brazen promotion of false gallantry and marketing of the operational failures, diversionary and questionable narratives or tactics”
For instance, Intersociety said, what has the President’s unanswered question to his Security and Intelligence Chiefs got to do with: “Benue massacre:Locals sheltered their attackers, gave them food, women”? “What has the question to do with 6,260 terrorists and criminals neutralized (killed) in joint operations nationwide over the last two years and 14, 138 suspects arrested”?
“A competent, unbiased and operationally efficient military chief should not have resorted to such vexatious and psychologically brainwashing and diversionary narratives. Such an egg-head military Chiefs should have swung into operational action; more so when the marauders are not far from their operational grips as they are very easy to be apprehended and brought to justice”Intersociety submitted.
They asked: “Since the Chief of Defense Staff, Gen Musa Christopher Gwabin, is operationally aware of the fact that Benue locals have been sheltering their attackers and giving them food and women”, why have the CDS, other security and intelligence chiefs still refuse to arrest the attackers? Is it not correct to say that this is another diversionary measure or tactics aimed at hunting down the defenceless victims of the serial massacres and hound them into indefinite detention through indiscriminate and arbitrary arrests, from where they will end up being falsely labeled as attackers and their attackers as victims”?
The rights group asked again:“whose C-in-C operational code on Fulani Jihadist Terrorism in Nigeria or any part thereof is in use; that of C-in-C Tinubu or former C-in-C Buhari”?
They said this question has become imperative going by findings arising from their : “several years of research and investigations on religiously motivated killings by Muslim jihadists in the country and roles played by the country’s security forces particularly the military”.
Continuing the rights group said: “We have produced several reports on armed state actor and armed non-state actor mass killings across Nigeria since August 2015; most prominent of which is the “Ocean Of Innocent Blood Flowing In The East”; a 282-Page Special Report, released in Enugu on Dec 22, 2024”
In that report, said Intersociety, their research and investigative findings between 2017 and before June 2023 showed that: “one of the greatest security threats and challenges facing Nigeria is gross partisanship of the Nigerian security forces particularly the military; to the extent that some friendly top security officers who pleaded not to be named, had shared such fears with our leadership and field researchers”.
They continued:”We had in the course of our investigations in places like Taraba, Kebbi, Niger, Plateau, Southern Kaduna, Benue, Kogi and some South-East and South-South States been told that ‘there exists a C-in-C operational code handed down by former President Muhammad Buhari to security and intelligence chiefs which specifically directed them to protect and not to touch or arrest members of the criminal Fulani population including jihadists among them”.