AN OPEN LETTER TO GOVERNOR HYACINTH ALIA ON YOUR THREE YEARS IN OFFICE: On Behalf of Thousands of Internally Displaced Persons in Benue State

May 29, 2026

Your Excellency,

We write to congratulate you on your third anniversary as Governor of Benue State.

Three years in office is no small milestone. It offers every leader an opportunity for reflection, accountability, and an honest assessment of promises made and promises kept.

Today, however, as you mark three years at the helm of our beloved state, we write not in celebration but in pain. We write with heavy hearts, carrying the voices of hundreds of martyred souls and thousands of displaced men, women, and children scattered across various camps in Benue State.

We write from tents and overcrowded shelters. We write from places where hunger has become a daily companion, where sickness stalks the weak, where children have forgotten what a normal home looks like, and where hope is slowly dying.

We write because silence has become too dangerous.

Your Excellency, we are among the survivors of one of the darkest chapters in the history of Benue State.

The memory of the Yelewata massacre of June 2025 remains fresh in our minds. More than 250 of our kinsmen were slaughtered in cold blood by Fulani terrorists armed with sophisticated weapons, machetes, and fire.

They burned our homes.

They destroyed our market.

They reduced our food barns to ashes. They turned children into orphans and wives into widows overnight.

The horrifying images of burnt bodies in market stalls, desperate families fleeing into the darkness, and smoke rising from what was once a thriving community remain permanently etched in our minds and in the conscience of the nation.

Many of us who survived that night escaped with nothing but the clothes on our bodies. Some lost entire families. Others lost limbs. Many lost the will to live.

Yet, despite all this suffering, we still believed government would stand with us.

Sadly, your administration has abandoned us.

Your Excellency, you promised the people of Benue State that all internally displaced persons would return to their ancestral homes within your first one hundred days in office.

Today, three years after, not only have the displaced not returned home, more camps are being established across the state by your government to camp more people while Fulani terrorists takeover their ancestral lands.

The number of displaced persons has continued to grow. What was supposed to be a temporary emergency has become a permanent way of life.

Instead of rebuilding communities, your government is normalizing displacement.

Instead of ending the attacks, we are watching the humanitarian crisis deepen under your watch. This is not the future you promised Benue people, Your Excellency.

Mr Governor, we are deeply troubled by what appears to be a complete lack of transparency regarding the billions of naira donated for our rehabilitation.

Following the Yelewata massacre and other attacks across the state, Nigerians and the international community rose in solidarity with us. In our darkest hour, humanity answered our cry.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu personally visited Benue State and made a substantial donation of N500 million. The First Lady of Nigeria, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, through the Renewed Hope Initiative, donated N1 Billion specifically for victims of the attack and other displaced persons.

The Governor of Nasarawa State, Abdullahi Sule, contributed N150 million. The Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume, donated N50 million. The European Union donated N886 million.

Other international humanitarian organizations contributed approximately N1.8 billion. Altogether, donations publicly announced amounted to approximately N4.386 billion.

These funds were not routine government allocations. They were not statutory revenues. They were extraordinary gifts of compassion intended specifically to alleviate the suffering of displaced Benue people.

Yet, months after receiving these donations, no comprehensive public account has been provided regarding how the funds are being utilized. No detailed rehabilitation plan has been unveiled by your government. No transparent framework for disbursement has been made public. No meaningful intervention matching the scale of the donations is visible in the camps.

This silence is disturbing. It is unacceptable. And it raises serious questions.

Your Excellency, beyond these donations, your administration has reportedly continued to deduct N13,217,391 monthly from each of the twenty-three local government councils of Benue State, amounting to N303,999,999 every month, under the claim that the funds are being used to procure relief materials for internally displaced persons.

Yet, thousands of displaced persons continue to suffer severe hunger and deprivation.

Many of the IDP camps lack adequate food. Many lack essential medicines. Many lack decent shelter. Many lack clean drinking water.

Many displaced persons have died quietly in the camps from sickness, deprivation, trauma, and hopelessness.

These are not mere statistics. These were fathers. These were mothers. These were children. These were human beings.

Your Excellency, where is the evidence of the billions allocated and donated in our name?

Where are the rehabilitation projects?

Where are the rebuilt homes?

Where are the reconstructed schools?

Where are the restored health centres?

Where are the economic recovery programmes?

Where is the hope we were promised?

Governor Alia, you have publicly acknowledged that your administration has received approximately N1.1 trillion in revenues over the last three years.

Yet, the vast majority of Benue communities cannot point to corresponding development.

Twenty-one (21) out of the twenty-three local government areas of the state have little or no visible evidence of government presence under your watch.

Rural roads remain neglected.

Schools remain abandoned.

Health facilities remain dysfunctional.

Communities remain vulnerable to attacks.

And internally displaced persons remain trapped in camps.

Local government funds from FAAC amounting to over N17 billion monthly remain unaccounted for and the 23 local governments have nothing to show in the last three years!

This painful reality demands honest answers.

Your Excellency, what hurts most is not merely the hardship. It is the feeling that those who suffer the most have become invisible to those entrusted with power.

It is difficult to understand why billions donated in our name remain shrouded in secrecy while displaced families struggle to find their next meal.

It is difficult to understand why those who lost everything must continue to beg for survival.

It is difficult to understand why empathy appears absent from your government’s response to one of the worst humanitarian crises in the history of our state.

Your Excellency, what makes our pain even more unbearable is the apparent attempt by your administration to downplay the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe confronting Benue State. We were shocked and deeply offended by the recent statement credited to your Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Tersoo Kula, claiming that the population of internally displaced persons in Benue State has dropped from 1.5 million to less than 500.

Such a statement is not only reckless and insensitive, but also represents a cruel insult to the memory of thousands of victims who have been killed, displaced, traumatized, and forced into miserable living conditions by years of unrelenting attacks. For those of us who live daily with the reality of displacement, who witness hungry children sleeping on empty stomachs and grieving families struggling to survive, such a claim felt like a deliberate attempt to erase our suffering from public consciousness. It was a shameful distortion of reality and a spit in the faces of victims across the state.

Equally disturbing are your repeated claims that attacks are now occurring in only three local government areas as against eighteen previously affected. Such assertions do not reflect the reality confronting our people. Communities across Benue continue to experience killings, invasions, kidnappings, destruction of farmlands, and forced displacement. We are also alarmed by the growing perception that casualty figures are routinely suppressed whenever attacks occur, thereby diminishing the true scale of the tragedy. Every life lost matters. Every victim deserves to be counted. Every bereaved family deserves acknowledgment. Leadership demands honesty, especially during moments of crisis. Attempting to minimize the extent of insecurity or reduce the number of victims on paper may create comforting headlines, but it does nothing to bring back the dead, heal the wounded, or restore displaced families to their homes. Benue’s security crisis cannot be solved through statistics management or public relations narratives; it can only be solved through truth, transparency, and decisive action.

History has taught us that public office is temporary. Power is temporary. Titles are temporary. But the consequences of leadership endure.

Long after governments have come and gone, future generations will ask difficult questions.

They will ask whether leaders stood with the vulnerable or abandoned them.

They will ask whether donated resources reached their intended beneficiaries.

They will ask whether justice prevailed over politics.

Today, we ask those questions ourselves.

Therefore, on behalf of thousands of internally displaced persons across Benue State, we respectfully but firmly demand the following:

1. Immediate publication of a comprehensive account of all donations received for victims of attacks and internally displaced persons.

2. Immediate public disclosure of the utilization plans for all humanitarian funds received.

3. Establishment of an independent and transparent monitoring mechanism involving civil society organizations, community leaders, religious leaders, and representatives of displaced persons.

4. Immediate deployment of resources towards food distribution, healthcare, shelter improvement, trauma counselling, education, and livelihood restoration.

5. A concrete and time-bound roadmap for the safe return of displaced persons to their ancestral homes.

We also call on fellow internally displaced persons across Benue State to remain united and peaceful but resolute in demanding accountability.

The resources donated for our welfare belong morally to the victims for whom they were intended.

Seeking transparency is not rebellion. Demanding accountability is not disrespect. Insisting on justice is not opposition.

It is our right.

As you mark three years in office today, Your Excellency, we pray that you will reflect deeply on the suffering of those whose voices are rarely heard.

We pray that compassion will triumph over politics.

We pray that transparency will replace silence.

We pray that action will replace promises.

May history remember that when our people cried for help, their voices were heard.

And may history also record what those in authority chose to do with that cry.

Yours faithfully,

Jonathan Shikyaa

For the Victims of Yelewata and Displaced Communities

Victor Terkende

For Internally Displaced Persons Across Benue State