Tension in Benue as Soldiers Clash with Community Guards; Mobile Police Back Volunteers
By Mike Odeh James and Olikita Ekani
(MAKURDI, Nigeria) — Nigerian soldiers have beaten and disarmed Benue State youth volunteers mobilizing for self-defense, days after Fulani Ethnic Militia gunmen murdered three Christian farmers in Apa County.
The violence unfolded on Thursday, June 4, 2026, in Adija village — a community already raw with grief after the Ikobi killings two days earlier. Youth volunteers, armed with locally made pipe guns, had gathered for coordination meetings in Ologo and Asaba villages before dispersing homeward. Soldiers intercepted them en route. Youth vigilante commander Olowo Otache and his younger brother were beaten and sustained life-threatening injuries, TruthNigeria learned. Both were transferred to Ugbokpo General Hospital. By nightfall, furious youths had sealed the Otukpo-Oweto Federal Highway, bringing traffic to a standstill.
Adu Aboh, an Apa Youth Volunteer who witnessed the crackdown, told TruthNigeria that the mobilization was born of accumulated grief and abandonment. “Angered by the failure of the military to stop the persistent killing of our people by armed Fulani Ethnic Militia, the latest of which was the gruesome murder of three of our Christian farmers in Ikobi community on Tuesday, June 2026, we the youths of Apa Local Government Area decided to mobilize ourselves for self-defense,” Aboh said.
The reward for that decision, he said, was a beating and empty hands. “The military also disarmed our youths, dispossessing us of our dane guns,” he added.
Eyewitness Energy Onoja painted a picture of two armies operating in the same territory with opposite loyalties. Mobile Police, he said, work shoulder-to-shoulder with community volunteers and engage the enemy. The Nigerian military, in his telling, exists to obstruct the defenders. “Our youth volunteers who are defending our people are peacefully and successfully working together with the Mobile Police during operations, but the military is against us,” he told TruthNigeria by phone.
Onoja said Fulani Ethnic Militia fighters have dug into deserted villages along the Apa-Agatu county boundary — ghost settlements emptied by years of attacks — and the military knows exactly where those camps are. “They are not here to defend our people but to provide cover for the Fulani terrorists killing our people. The military don’t go to confront Fulani Militia at night. The military is disarming us but can’t protect our people. We no longer need the military,” he said.
Alleged Pattern of Collusion
Thursday’s attack on the volunteers did not occur in isolation. Ofu Adu, of Ochumekwu community in Apa County, described a Forward Operating Base that functions less like a shield and more like a one-way gate. “We inform the military before and during attacks, but they say their orders are not to pursue the attackers unless directly engaged,” Adu told TruthNigeria.
On April 18, armed fighters stormed Ochumekwu; volunteers held the line with hunting rifles, but Elijah Aleichenu paid with his life. “We had to beg the soldiers before they supported us in retrieving his body,” Adu said.
Franc Utoo, a Yelwata native and official of Equipping the Persecuted, went further. “Fulani officials in the military do participate in attacks by Fulani jihadists on Benue communities, and the military usually go after their local youths who arm themselves with pipe guns to defend their people,” he said.
Utoo described a generational disarmament — communities now left clutching pipe guns and bows against adversaries carrying rocket-propelled grenades. In 2022, he said, the mask slipped: thirteen attackers died repelling a raid on Yelwata, and two were found to be serving military officers, identity cards still on their chests. “There is a very thick conspiracy against our people and other minorities in Nigeria right from the establishment,” he told TruthNigeria.
USCIRF Accuses Military of Systemic Collusion
What residents describe in Apa County, Washington has now been documented in print. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), in its May 2026 report Nonstate Violators of Religious Freedom in Nigeria: Fulani Militants, leveled serious accusations against elements of the Nigerian military, alleging active collaboration with the Fulani Ethnic Militia.
According to USCIRF, the collusion takes multiple forms: soldiers sharing advanced intelligence with Fulani militia commanders, withdrawing from defensive positions before raids, and providing logistical cover that enables attackers to strike without military interdiction. The commission described these as a systemic pattern spanning Benue, Kaduna, and Plateau states.
USCIRF urged the Nigerian government to open independent investigations into implicated officers, pursue prosecutions, and publicly sanction those found culpable — warning that every officer who escapes accountability pours fresh fuel on a fire that has consumed thousands of lives.
Mike Odeh James and Olikita Ekani are conflict reporters for TruthNigeria.
