On April 5, 2021, a group of local militants in Bonta, a town in the Konshinsha Local Government Area of Nigeria’s northwestern Benue State, waylaid and killed some soldiers coming from Okpute, a neighbouring community in the Oju Local Government Area of the state. This was in the heat of the tensions and tit-for-tat killings between the native Tiv and Igede, who, respectively, populate Bonta and Okpute.
For months, the Tiv militants, otherwise called Bonta Boys, had nursed the suspicion that the soldiers were aiding the Okpute side, This led to the ambush and murder of 12 army personnel.
The conflict between the two groups has a long history with roots in land boundary disputes, a common cause of clashes between Nigerian ethnic groups, especially in rural areas where farmers increasingly need land for cultivation amid rising population growth.
“The soldiers claimed they came for peace but they were only fuelling the war,” said Gungul Samuel,…
