By Fater Abagu
Let me say something that will make some people uncomfortable, because truth has never been famous for its comfort.
Benjamin Netanyahu is not universally loved. He is controversial, he is polarizing, and he has acquired more political enemies as Israel’s Prime Minister than most leaders do in a lifetime. But here is what even his fiercest critics cannot take away from him: when external forces threaten Israel’s existence, he does not blink. He does not call a press conferences. He does not form committees. He responds with the full weight of consequence. Benue State needs that energy.
I think about the parallels and I find it unsettling how accurate they are. Israel sits in a neighbourhood surrounded by state actors, militia groups and ideological movements that do not recognize its right to exist. For decades, those elements have been committed to Israel’s destruction.
Benue State also sits in a Nigerian geopolitical space where armed herdsmen, bandits, and militia groups have for decades treated its farmlands as conquest territory and its people as acceptable casualties. In both cases, the threat is not random. It is organised, it is recurring, and it is ideologically motivated.
Netanyahu understands something that Benue people must urgently accept: people under existential threat cannot afford a governor whose primary skills are speaking English, describing the reccurring tragedy as mere skirmishes, giving excuses for the invaders, or occasionally making appeals in press releases.
Israel is not surviving by writing letters to the Arab League. It has built capacity, developed intelligence, empowered its people with the legal and institutional framework to defend themselves, and made the cost of attacking Israel something no rational actor would want to pay.
We have buried; we have mourned; and we have protested with placards that are quickly discarded after every episode of the invasions.
We have watched our people flee their ancestral lands while the governor keeps holding so-called security and peace meetings but the only thing those meetings produce are photographs for more press releases.
A Netanyahu-esque governor for Benue would not wait for anybody’s permission to think. He would build a community-driven security intelligence network. He would legally empower local defense structures. He would make Benue’s case loudly and relentlessly on every national and international platform until silence becomes impossible. He would name the threat for what it is, unapologetically, and pursue consequence rather than consensus with bad faith actors.
Netanyahu does not make Israel safe by being liked. He makes Israel safe by being unmovable on the question of his people’s survival.
Benue people are some of the most hardworking, peaceful, and agriculturally productive people in Nigeria. We are called the Food Basket of the Nation, yet the farmers who should fill that basket are being slaughtered in the same fields that feed the rest of Nigeria.
There is something morally bizarre about a governor who enjoys comfort from the goodwill of his people but cannot summon the political will to protect them against external aggressors.
The governor Benue needs is not one who is popular for concentrating infrastructural projects in major cities for political capital or for fighting political opponents. What Benue needs a governor who is feared in the right places and for the right reasons. One who understands that pampering certain threats does not produce peace but it produces an emboldened enemy and a longer list of the dead.
Benue has mourned long enough.
Abagu, a concerned Benue citizen writes from Mbakyaan Council Ward, Buruku LGA of Benue State.
