The Benue South Senatorial candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, Dan Onjeh, has rejected claims that Benue youths were responsible for the attack on the convoy of the party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, during his recent visit to the state.
Onjeh, who was standing beside Obi when the incident occurred, said those who barricaded the road and carried sticks and stones were predominantly middle-aged men in their 40s and 50s. He challenged the public to examine available videos and photographs of the episode, arguing that the attackers did not fit the description of youths and that clothing alone does not determine age.
He insisted that responsibility for the incident should rest with those who took part in it rather than thousands of young people who had no connection to the attack. “Those were not the Benue youths that I know. We must not take the shameful conduct of a handful of thugs and place it at the doorstep of an entire generation,” he said.
Onjeh also questioned the location of the barricade, noting that the convoy was stopped shortly after leaving the airport and before it could enter the heart of Makurdi. He alleged that the positioning was intended to prevent Obi from reaching Wurukum Roundabout, where residents and supporters might have gathered upon learning of his presence in the state capital.
He stressed that Obi’s visit was humanitarian and not a political campaign. The former Anambra governor had planned to visit Yelwata to honour victims of recent violence, sympathise with bereaved families, meet survivors and see internally displaced persons. The visit was deliberately low-key, with only a few NDC leaders and members present at the airport to receive him, and relevant security agencies had been informed in advance. Onjeh recalled that Obi had previously visited victims of attacks in the Otukpo area of Benue South, where he was peacefully received.
Rejecting any suggestion that Benue or its youths had rejected Obi, Onjeh said he had received numerous calls and messages from young people across the state expressing anger and embarrassment over the incident and distancing themselves from those involved. Some of the callers, he added, had asked Obi to return so they could demonstrate that the attack did not represent the position of the state’s youths.
As a former president of the National Association of Nigerian Students, Onjeh said his experience in the student and youth movement made it necessary to speak against the collective labelling of an entire generation. He pointed to the 2023 presidential election results, in which Obi polled 308,372 votes in Benue State, narrowly trailing the APC candidate’s 310,468, and secured more than 95,000 votes in Benue South Senatorial District compared with about 40,000 or fewer for the APC and PDP candidates. Young people, he noted, formed a significant part of that support.
Onjeh condemned political thuggery, warning that normalising violence against political opponents could eventually endanger every political tendency. “Today it is Peter Obi. Tomorrow it could be the candidate of another political party. If we normalise thuggery simply because its immediate target is somebody we do not support, eventually nobody will be safe from the monster we have created. The answer to a candidate you do not support is not a stone. It is your vote,” he said.
He called on journalists, political actors and commentators to stop referring to those responsible for the attack as “Benue youths” and urged that young people be allowed to express their political choices through democratic means ahead of the 2027 elections. “Do not speak for Benue youths with stones. Do not speak for them with sticks. Do not speak for them with a barricade. Allow them to speak for themselves,” he added.
Onjeh expressed confidence that Benue youths would again make their voices heard at the ballot box in 2027, concluding that a barricade is not a ballot, thuggery is not democracy, and the men who attacked Obi’s convoy must never be allowed to become the face of the state’s courageous youth.
