For the eight years he served as Nigeria’s elected President, Obasanjo
never thought much about Benue as a State. If he did, it was
a state he never cared to visit, to see.It is on record that
he paid eight ‘State Visits’ to a particular state in the
south/south – an average of one visit per year. He never
paid one such visit to Benue for the whole of that period.
His first visit to Benue after becoming President in 1999
was on January 1 2003. On that day, worshipers attending an
obscure Pentecostal church in Makurdi, the state capital,
suddenly found the President in their midst. As the
frightened congregation wondered what to do with the big
stranger, the Pastor offered him his pulpit where he
announced meekly that he came to seek forgiveness from the
people of the State.
About a year before then - in October 2001 – the world was
shocked by what the military under Obasanjo did in that
state. The Nigerian media has wrongly termed what happened
that year as
the invasion or sacking of Zaki Biam. The truth however is
that Zaki Biam is just the headquarter of a Local Government
in a senatorial zone of six Local Governments. This whole
zone was cordoned off by soldiers with an armada of armored
tanks that were given air cover by helicopter gunboats.
The military juggernaut then proceeded to unleash systematic
terror on unarmed civilians, a type that has not been heard
of in Nigerian history. The Human Rights Watch did a very
detailed and painstaking report on the invasion. It includes
the atrocities at Gbeji where soldiers gathered unarmed
people in the market square, supposedly for a peace meeting
and shot many of them at point blank range. Others at the
gathering were shot in the legs, drenched in petrol and then
set ablaze. Over a hundred people died in this incidence
alone.
A special target for the invading army was the country home
of Obasanjo’s former Chief of Army staff General Victor Malu.
A few months before then, he had disagreed with Obasanjo
over military issues and was dropped. His family house at
Tse Adoor in Katsina Ala local Government was raced to the
ground; his mother of over 80 years drilled and beaten while
his blind uncle of over 90 years was thrown into a burning
house where he roasted to death as his shocked wife watched.
She was later shot to death.
Roadblocks were mounted and Tiv tribesmen who were
travelling in vehicles brought down and shot. In fact the
damage done to human life at Zaki Biam was minimal because
as news of the mass slaughter of Tiv men by soldiers spread,
they all fled the town into the bush. Still the soldiers
made sure they leveled all buildings in Zaki Biam, including
that of Benjamin Chaha, former Speaker House of
Representatives.
Obasanjo never went to see the damage that was done by his
soldiers but he allowed his Vice President Atiku Abubakar to
go. The Vice President expressed horror at what he saw.
Chuba Okadigbo, then Senate President also went and in
disbelief said the brutality used to destroy Zaki Biam was
not used even during the Biafra civil war.
The first reaction of President Obasanjo was to deny the
involvement of Nigerian soldiers in the massacre. Then as
evidence became irrefutable, he argued that what happened in
Benue is what people should expect when they kill soldiers.
Due to domestic and international pressure, Obasanjo’s
reluctantly set up a panel under Justice Okechukwu Opene to
investigate communal disturbances in Benue, Plateau,
Nassarawa and Taraba states. This panel and its terms of
reference did not meet the expectations of those who wanted
the atrocities during the Benue invasion properly
investigated. To expand the panels scope - covering other
states - looked like a deliberate diversion. Still, people
cooperated with the panel and by 2003, it submitted it’s
report.
The report went the way many other panels set up by
governments in Nigeria go – thrashed and forgotten. It is
believed that the government of Obasanjo refused to release
it because it said one or two things in its conclusions that
were not in favor of his government. This was reinforced by
the fact that his successor, Umaru Yar’adua and his army
chief tendered a public apology to the people of Benue for
the conduct of the military during the massacre.
The massacre also attracted litigation. Dr Alexander Gaadi
who claimed to have suffered physical torture, loss of
property and relations during the invasion took the
government to court and won his case. A Federal High court
in Enugu granted him the over 40billion Naira he claimed as
damages.
The military invasion of Benue is one issue Obasanjo has
hardly talked about in public. Earlier, he announced during
the burial of the 19 soldiers killed in Zaki Biam that he
had directed security agents to fish out the culprits. This
would have been an easy job because those who committed the
crime exposed themselves by posing in photo sessions with
their victims. These pictures were widely published in
newspapers. But evidently Obasanjo’s hitmen were not in
Benue to look for the murderers.
I have presented one occasion in 2003 where Obasanjo
apologized for the massacre - on January 1 when he gate
crashed into a local church. The second was on February 14,
Valentines day. He told his audience at IBB square in
Makurdi that he launched his re - election campaign on that
day because he wanted to show the Benue people how much he
loves them. He also wanted to ask for forgiveness over the
massacre.
It is quite strange that last week he traveled to Makurdi, a
town he loathed to visit as a President and announced that
George Akume the former Governor of the state should be held
responsible for the massacre.
Published
January 24th, 2011
