The Middle Belt Concern (MBC) has declared a state of emergency over what it described as persistent violence in parts of the Middle Belt, calling on the Federal Government to take immediate steps to protect communities and facilitate the return of displaced persons.

The group made the call at the MBC Media Roundtable in Lagos, where it demanded an end to the killings, the restoration of displaced communities and what it described as a more effective government response to insecurity.

MBC, a coalition of more than 80 citizen groups, said communities in Benue, Southern Kaduna, Kogi, Kwara, Plateau and other parts of the Middle Belt had experienced years of violence, resulting in deaths, displacement and the loss of livelihoods.

“For over a decade, our people in Benue, Southern Kaduna, Kogi, Kwara, Plateau, and across the Middle Belt have buried their dead, fled their farms, and watched a government treat mass atrocity as a footnote,” the group said.

“That era of polite appeals is over,” it added.

The coalition said governments at all levels had a responsibility to protect lives and property, and called for concrete measures to address insecurity and displacement.

“We say plainly: governments at every level have failed in their first constitutional duty — to protect life,” MBC said.

The group argued that many displaced persons remained without adequate support, accurate documentation or a clear pathway to return to their communities.

“Platitudes are not policy. Sympathy is not security,” it said.

“Millions remain displaced with no accurate count, no trauma care, and no roadmap home, because no one in power has been made to answer for it,” the coalition added.

MBC called for a credible national count of displaced persons, the securing of ancestral communities, improved trauma care and a roadmap for restorative justice.

“We demand immediate, verifiable action: a credible national count of the displaced, the physical securing of ancestral homes, real trauma care — not token gestures — and a binding roadmap to restorative justice,” it said.

The group also rejected proposals for ranching reserves, saying it viewed such arrangements as inappropriate for communities displaced by violence.

On the security situation, MBC rejected descriptions of the violence as “farmer-herder clashes,” “communal clashes” or “climate-induced resource conflict.”

“What is happening in the Middle Belt is not a clash. It is not a misunderstanding between neighbours,” the group said.

MBC described the violence as “organised, repeated, and escalating,” and said it had affected entire villages and forced residents from their homes.

“We reject — categorically and permanently — the sanitised vocabulary of ‘farmer-herder clashes,’ ‘communal clashes,’ and ‘climate-induced resource conflict,’” it said.

“These are not neutral descriptions. They are alibis, and every day they go unchallenged in official language is another day the killing is normalised,” the coalition added.

MBC also expressed concern over the broader security and economic situation in the country, citing insecurity, poverty and displacement.

“Nigeria stands at the edge of collapse — collapsing life expectancy, a security apparatus that has surrendered the countryside to killers, and poverty deepening by the day,” it said.

The coalition further said the human cost of the conflict had been significant, with thousands of lives lost and millions displaced over the years.

“These are not abstractions. They are our mothers, our farmers, our children — erased, and then forgotten by a state that owes them protection,” MBC said.

The group urged the Federal Government to prioritise the protection of communities, the restoration of displaced persons and access to trauma care.

It also called for measures that would allow affected communities to return safely to their ancestral homes.

“History is watching, and history does not forgive administrations that chose comfort over courage in the face of evil,” MBC said. (Daily Trust)

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