(A historical poem in standard English, rendered
with solemn dignity)
Benue,
Your river runs crimson, heavy with the silt of
sorrow.
From the arches of Makurdi to the quiet bends of
Katsina-Ala,
The waters murmur an ancient question:
"Have you forgotten what transpired before?"
In 1920, colonial pens drew arbitrary lines,
Declaring the Middle Belt a buffer,
Assigning the Tiv fertile plains their forebears tilled
beneath the moon.
Yet by 1960, independence redrew those boundaries;
Voices from the north proclaimed,
"The cattle are ours; the right of passage is ours."
In the darkness of 2011,
When the moon veiled its face in shame,
Herders swept into Agatu like shadows armed with
steel.
Cutlasses flashed; rifles sang their lethal chorus.
Homes blazed; mothers fell shielding infants on their
backs.
More than five hundred souls ascended that night,
Consigned to mass graves beside the River Dep.
On New Year's Day, 2018,
While burukutu flowed and Swange rhythms filled
the air,
Gunfire shattered the celebration.
Guma, Logo, Okpokwu
Blood surged beyond the Benue's banks in the rainy
season.
Authorities spoke of "farmer-herder clashes,"
Yet the people knew it was a war for land,
A silent conquest cloaked in grazing disputes.
Governor Ortom cried out until his voice fractured:
"The federal government has abandoned us!"
Anti-open-grazing laws were enacted,
Only to be torn apart in Abuja.
Miyetti Allah declared, "Cattle colonies or nothing."
Youth formed vigilante bands armed with local
rifles,
But bullets respect neither charm nor courage.
Benue,
The soil that once yielded yams swollen like a
woman in full term
Now yields graves.
The same earth where Tiv, Idoma, and Igede sowed
seed in harmony
Is saturated with tears too bitter to nurture crops.
From the Agatu massacre to the horrors of Daagu,
From the burning of NKST churches in 2023
To the weekly body counts of 2025
History repeats itself with merciless precision.
The jihad of Usman dan Fodio reached Sokoto
in 1804;
In this century it knocks again at Benue's back door.
Yet hear this:
The Tiv do not flee their ancestral soil.
The Idoma woman does not abandon her grinding
stone.
We shall stand, though armed only with matchets
and prayer.
We shall teach our children:
"This land is your inheritance, not a grazing
reserve."
River Benue, wash away the blood,
But never wash away the memory.
Let the lament we raise today
Become the anthem tomorrow will sing:
"We shall not yield."
The Tor Tiv will hear it.
Ortom will hear it.
Even the spirits of past leaders will hear it.
Benue is no conquered territory.
Benue is home.
The struggle continues.
(The poem closes with the faint, lingering whistle of
an elder beneath the ityô tree, carrying the weight of
centuries.)