Benue killings: Is this the president you endorsed? (OPINION)

As Nigeria reels from yet another wave of bloodshed in Benue State—where recent gunmen attacks left more than 150 villagers dead, many burned alive in their homes—the nation’s attention turns, inevitably, to the man in whose name we voted: President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

The unfolding tragedy in Benue is not an isolated outbreak of violence, but rather a grim symptom of a broader malaise: a leadership marked by performative gestures, political expediency, and a troubling paucity of empathy.

Absence of Empathy: The Mokwa Flood as Prelude

In late May 2025, torrential rains unleashed catastrophic flooding in Mokwa, Niger State. Over 200 lives were lost, hundreds of homes were submerged, and critical infrastructure—roads, bridges, markets—was swept away.

Yet, when President Tinubu’s condolences were needed most, it was Vice‑President Kashim Shettima who sat before distraught survivors, pledging federal relief on the President’s behalf.

Despite announcing a ₦2 billion reconstruction fund and dispatching 20 food‑loaded trucks, Mr Tinubu himself remained at his desk in Abuja, delegating his presence to envoys rather than offering the solace of personal solidarity. This physical absence was more than mere logistics; it set a tone.

When the country is in pain, its leader’s first act of compassion should be to stand among the afflicted. Instead, Nigeria witnessed a head of state whose body language signaled distance, if not detachment.

President Tinubu’s detachment in the aftermath of the Mokwa flood was not an isolated occurrence, but rather a continuation of an unsettling pattern of presidential absence during national tragedies.

One of the earliest examples came in June 2023, when a boat accident on the Niger River in Patigi, Kwara State, claimed the lives of over 100 wedding guests.

The tragedy shocked the nation and drew widespread media attention, yet President Tinubu neither visited the victims’ families nor made a physical appearance at the scene. His condolences came via a written statement, which many described as impersonal and formulaic.

Similarly, in September 2023, when flooding displaced thousands in Bayelsa and Kogi States, President Tinubu once again failed to show up in person.

Despite mounting public pressure and calls from local leaders for federal presence, the President remained in Abuja, directing federal agencies from afar and relying on surrogates to visit displaced persons.

These instances—prior to the Mokwa flood—suggest that the President’s current pattern of governance tends to avoid the emotionally resonant act of being present.

Political Calculus Over Human Lives

While entire communities in Mokwa and Benue were grappling with loss, the President and his All Progressives Congress (APC) were already pivoting toward re-election strategising.

On May 22, 2025, barely weeks after accepting the mantle of national mourning, the APC officially endorsed Tinubu as its sole candidate for the 2027 presidential race—a ceremony replete with promises of economic continuity and reform.

Yet never once did the party pause to address the urgent insecurity that was devouring farms, markets, and families.

The optics are stark: while children and the elderly perished in unnamed villages, APC governors draped themselves in campaign paraphernalia, unaware—and perhaps uncaring—that their mandate to protect was being squandered in favor of political theater.

Empty Words on the Ashes of Benue

When gunmen descended on the Yelewata community in Guma LGA, sparing neither women nor children, President Tinubu’s preferred mode of engagement was a scripted condemnation via press statement.

“I will adjust my schedule to visit Benue people on Wednesday,” he declared, promising a personal visit to assess the damage.

The charred husks of homes and commerce in Benue stand as a mute reproach to a leader whose words betray no trace of sorrow in his countenance.

An authentic leader would have gone beyond televised sound bites, immersing himself in the grief of survivors—the orphaned children, the widows, the displaced—bearing witness to the human cost of insecurity under his watch.

Governors’ Endorsements: A Paradox of Loyalty

Perhaps the most poignant indictment of Tinubu’s presidency is the chorus of APC governors rallying behind him for a second term.

In the same breath that they praise his “economic reforms,” they ignore the fact that inflation has soared past 23 percent, that food security is now a privilege rather than a right, and that Nigerians no longer feel safe in their own communities.

This display of political loyalty, untempered by accountability, forces a question: when did governance become synonymous with uninterrupted tenure rather than service to the people?

At what point did infrastructure ribbon‑cuttings eclipse the imperative to safeguard lives?

The Burden of Choice

When Nigerians cast their votes in February 2023, many yearned for a president who would not only talk about reform but also personify compassion, decisiveness, and a hands‑on approach to crisis.

Instead, two years into his term, President Tinubu has cultivated an image of a distant executive—adept at policy pronouncements and partisan maneuvering, yet reluctant to walk the ground where suffering is most acute.

As the smoke still rises from the ruins of Yelewata, and as survivors grapple with loss, the nation must reckon with a disquieting reality: the leader we endorsed appears more committed to cementing political power than mending broken communities.

In the balance between campaigning for a second term and delivering on the most basic duty of governance—protection of citizens, the latter has been glaringly neglected.

Is this the president you endorsed? As Benue burns, and as the echoes of unfulfilled promises linger, this question demands not just a simple yes or no, but a collective reckoning on the values and expectations that guide our democracy.