By Ivan Grozny
In the annals of Nigerian leadership, where grand gestures and grander silences compete for immortality, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has penned a new chapter so gloriously tepid it could warm the heart of a stone.
Last week, as the Yelewata community in Benue State reeled from a barbaric assault — some 200 souls, including women and children, slaughtered and scorched by suspected herdsmen — the President, our noble helmsman, carried on with the serene indifference of a man scheduling his next ribbon-cutting.
While the nation’s digital agora, that raucous platform called X, erupted in anguished cries, Tinubu’s gaze remained fixed on the horizon of 2027, where a second term glimmers like a distant oasis. Truly, what is a massacre when one has campaign blocs to woo?
For days, as the ashes of Yelewata smoldered and the blood of innocents cried out, our gallant leader busied himself with matters of state—chiefly, it seems, the art of not noticing. Nigerians, those pesky subjects, took to their keyboards, their outrage as raw as the wounds of Benue. “200 lives lost, and Tinubu’s silence is deafening,” wailed one user, while another branded him unfit for even a ward councillor’s post. Yet, the presidential ear remained untroubled, tuned instead to the siren song of Kaduna’s state-built projects, ready for their ceremonial unveiling. Why bother with a trifling genocide when there are photo ops to be had?
Enter, stage left, Pope Leo XIV, that caped crusader of the Vatican, whose Sunday Angelus prayer thundered with condemnation of the “terrible massacre.” From Rome’s hallowed halls, His Holiness stooped to notice what Nigeria’s commander-in-chief had overlooked, praying for the “rural Christian communities of Benue” so relentlessly besieged.
Lo, the papal voice pierced the presidential haze, rousing Tinubu from his heroic slumber. A statement emerged, not with the fire of resolve, but with the limp platitude of a man caught napping. The massacre, he mused, was but a “communal clash,” a mere squabble over land, not the calculated ethnic cleansing decried by the Idoma Forum, who saw herders’ designs on Benue’s lush pastures. Such is the valor of framing genocide as a neighbourly spat.
As the nation’s scorn grew too strident to ignore, Tinubu, ever the statesman, adjusted his itinerary with the grace of a reluctant debutante. Kaduna’s shiny projects would wait; Benue, at last, warranted a visit. On Wednesday, he would descend upon the grieving, flanked by security chiefs and a town hall’s worth of stakeholders, to “foster peace” and “assess the crisis.”
Noble indeed, this belated pilgrimage, announced with the condescension of one who expects applause for remembering his lines. “We must manage our anger,” he counselled, as if the bereaved were merely petulant children. Meanwhile, whispers of 2027 campaign maneuvers linger, suggesting a leader more preoccupied with votes than vigils.
Thus, we salute President Tinubu, whose epic dawdle to Benue redefines heroism. In this mock odyssey, where silence speaks louder than action, he strides toward 2027, undeterred by the cries of Yelewata’s fallen. May his visit bring solace — or at least a better script.
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