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The picture is brutal in its simplicity: a young man face-down in the red dirt, arms stretched forward as if he was still trying to crawl to safety when the bullets caught him. This was sometime this morning along the Naka road in Gwer West, Benue State, less than 48 hours after three farmers were slaughtered in the same axis.
No name yet. No official statement. Just another corpse dumped at the roadside like refuse, with tall dry grass as the only witness and vultures already circling overhead by the time the photo started circulating on WhatsApp and Facebook.
The caption that came with it was short and bitter: “Naka road Benue state foolani has taken over.”
That one sentence carries more weight than any press release ever could. Because everyone who travels that road knows the routine by heart now, leave home before dawn if you must farm, pray hard, move in convoy if possible, and if you hear gunshots, run into the bush and don’t look back.
Yet people still have to eat. Yam and rice don’t harvest themselves. So they go out, and some never come back.
This latest killing comes barely a day after the bodies of Mr. Ioryer Kwaghkaha, Ayila Atsar, and a third farmer were evacuated from Gilim Ashi village and deposited at Naka morgue. It comes weeks after travelers were ambushed and shot on the very same stretch. The army will roll in, clear the scene, issue a statement about “ongoing patrols” and “hot pursuit,” and tomorrow or next week another picture like this one will appear.
The question on every lip in Benue this evening is no longer “who did this?” but “when will it stop?”
Until someone in authority finds an answer that is backed by action and not just words, Naka road, Agatu road, Makurdi-Gboko road, and every other killing corridor in this state will continue to collect bodies.
Rest in peace to the young man in the blue shirt and jeans. May your death not be just another statistic that fades from the timeline by tomorrow morning.
