Arc. Dr Peter Agada
"President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's administration must stop being a government of funeral delegations, ephemeral consolation of genocide victims and empty ceremonial promises of security, and rise to restore Nigeria from being a republic of bloodshed which it is now to one of law, order, peace, opportunity and prosperity.*_
"Mr. President must re-event his administration into a digital age security machine. One that has the cutting-edge capabilities to bring to book culprits and erase all roving militia murderers, killer herdsmen, ransom bandits, bloodthirsty terrorists and their urban networks who aid them in any corner of Nigeria.*_
"Nigeria has more than enough resources to achieve this from what is connived, cornered and stolen in only a few government agencies or parastatals and her annual budgets. What is lacking is the political will, sincerity and transparency of the executors of security policies."
Several reasons constrained me from immediate reaction to the latest episode of cold-blooded, wanton massacre of citizens of Akpachi and Otukpo-Nobi in Otukpo local government area of Benue state.
Following the horrific bloodbath which took place at the dawn of last Sunday, July 12, 2026, it was needful to endure these extra days in order to obtain reliable confirmation and corroboration of casualties, the injured and the internally displaced survivors by official government sources, on-the-ground witnesses, independent first responders and partners of our organisation, The Movement Nigeria, who we despatched to the affected areas.
TMN's painstaking investigation was to enable one have a balanced, objective assessment of the tragedy; the loss of lives suffered and trauma aftermaths of the victims, so that I would convey facts that are accurate in substance and clear in echo to the government of the day, to members of the international community and to global genocide observers who have been constantly in touch with me over the years and since the Sunday dawn massacre on the serial genocidal pogroms against Nigerian citizens of the North Central zone, the Middle Belt states and our country in general.
Subsequent to these measures, I am deeply saddened to inform Nigerians and the international community that contrary to the compressed and minimized casualty figures of 18 which the federal government of Nigeria has shyly admitted, our combined on-the-spot teams and international partners have revealed a far more harrowing tally. This includes more than fifty men, women, infant children and the elderly murdered in cold blood, many severely wounded from sophisticated artillery fire opened on them. As in similar massacres, numerous indigenes have presently fled the affected communities into temporary shelters in surrounding villages after the horrors of seeing their unarmed and defenceless families butchered.
We have also confirmed the excruciating report that among those wiped out by the savage hordes of suspected Fulani militia is a single family of nine who included a two-year old baby.
I and The Movement Nigeria mourn and extend our heartfelt condolences to the survivors and immediate relatives of the dead. We condole with and pray God to grant overcoming strength to the Akpachi and Otukpo-Nobi communities, the Benue and Plateau state frontlines of horrific re-occuring pogroms, and every other part of Nigeria where the blood of innocent Nigerians has continued to be spilled like sludge, while the indelible aftermaths of these raw, heinous crimes are continuously swept under the carpet by government after government without tangible, accountable and adequately deterrent consequences to the perpetuators.
The serial, unabating bloodshed by free roaming, lethally armed, increasingly emboldened ethnic militias responsible for these calculated massacres challenge the security, sovereignty, national stability, peace and progress of all of us as a people and nation under one constitution.
As TMN, our research findings over the years are heart wrenching, to say the least. We bleed and grieve deeply not just because of this latest chapter of bloodbath. Our aggregated sorrow, aggravated by the insincerity, nonchallance and lack of accountability by governments at both federal and state levels, in spite of monumental budgets perennially voted for security, derives from a glaring history of chronic constitutional failure of government to protect the lives of our citizens, their farming occupations and most basic rights to life even at the lowest levels of existence.
For example, some of our studies, which can be verified in the virtual space, show the following. In closely matched studies, the casualty metrics of globally renowned war research organisations, including Mediazona, the Book of Memory Group, the BBC and the US Library of Congress, in under five years between 2016 and 2021 alone, Nigerians who were violently murdered across all gender and age groups were 50,252. These include infants plucked from their mothers' breasts and slaughtered, babies given birth to in terrorists' captivity and fed to the dogs of their captors, octogenarians lined up and shot or burnt alive in their homes, clergy and clerics of both Christian and Muslim faiths, and worshippers rounded up and shot to death right inside churches and mosques by Islamic extremists. These gruesome crimes were committed in 2,288 documented terror attacks and victim executions.
During the same period another 51,425 Nigerians were murdered in violent crimes such as kidnappings for ransom, robbery, rape, police brutality and other forms of extra-judicial killings. When you combine the above casualties of insecurity in Nigeria, the figure of 101,677 comes to 57 Nigerians who are violently killed everyday.
In comparison to the above, Ukraine, which has been in a full-blown war with superpower Russia, involving devastating modern weapons of mass destruction, recorded, between 2022 and August 2025, a casualty figure of only 73,920 soldiers and civilians combined. This comes to 54 casualties per day during the height of its ongoing war. The comparison with Nigeria, a country that is not at war yet suffers a casualty of 57 citizens daily, speaks for itself and demonstrates the glaring extent of security failure by government stratas of our country. That is not where the tragedy ends. It is in the fact that about 70% of that gross national massacre figure continues to occur in the North Central and Middle Belt states of Nigeria alone.
A TMN ongoing study also indicates that like the recent Akpachi and Otukpo-Nobi massacres of few days ago, more Nigerians die daily from violent deaths than the cows that are slaughtered for consumption in some cities of some African countries.
Given the above gory spectre of insecurity which pervades every part of our dear country, I wish to passionately appeal to governments of all tiers. Wake up. Forge the political will to live up to your constitutional responsibility of protecting lives and properties a focal priority of governance.
Make the Otukpo killings of last Sunday the last of its kind in any part of our great country. Go after and bring every single one of the militia responsible for the killings to book.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's administration must stop being a government of funeral delegations, ephemeral consolation of genocide victims and empty ceremonial promises of security, and rise to restore Nigeria from being a republic of bloodshed which it is now to one of law, order, peace, opportunity and prosperity.
Mr. President must re-event his administration into a digital age security machine. One that has the cutting-edge capabilities to bring to book culprits and erase all roving militia murderers, killer herdsmen, ransom bandits, bloodthirsty terrorists and their urban networks who aid them in any corner of Nigeria.
Nigeria has more than enough resources to achieve this from what is connived, cornered and stolen in only a few government agencies or parastatals and her annual budgets. What is lacking is the political will, sincerity and transparency of the executors of security policies.
Arc. Dr. Peter Agada,
YPP Presidential Hopeful 2027,
Global Convener TMN
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