Yelewata Native Studying in U.S. Charges Nigerian Soldiers with Complicity
By Ekani Olikita
(Makurdi) President Bola Tinubu and the Benue State governor are scrambling to contain the public relations disaster in a village north of Makurdi after a poorly reported massacre in the early hours of June 14.
The President on Wednesday June 18 will make a personal visit to Yelewata, a village of 3,000 that suffered the horrific murder of more than 200 civilians, chiefly women and children. Gov. Alia has mobilized the state’s bureaucracy to laud the rare presidential visit.
The President initially said nothing about the historic atrocity until Sunday, when his media spokesman offered his condolence statement and asserted a confirmed death count of 59 victims, which was already 50 percent below the figure cited by the Associated press. By then, TruthNigeria was reporting a death count of 200.
Gov. Hyacinth Alia’s spokesman initially cited a death toll of 45 on Saturday, which was ramped up to 151 on Tuesday after outcry from relatives of the victims who are still retrieving bodies of victims in outlying areas.
The true horror of the killing was spreading rapidly on Tuesday through the YouTube activism of a Yelewata native son in Oklahoma, lawyer Franc Utoo, who is working on a graduate degree in public administration at the University of Central Oklahoma.
“Hundreds of displaced persons took shelter in the trading stalls of the central market of Yelewata because they thought it was the safest place to spend the night,” Utoo said to TruthNigeria. “The displaced persons thought the market stalls would be protected by the Nigerian army in the area and the federal police,” Utoo said.
The killing team of Fulani militia brought padlocks and chains with them to allow them to lock the sheltering displaced women and children into the stalls. After that the terrorists doused the stalls with gasoline and burned them alive, Utoo said.
“I am devastated by the news of the attack, which took the lives of 23 of my cousins, Utoo said.
“Approximately 100 Fulani militia were allowed to come into the town after midnight,” Utoo said by phone. We believe some Army soldiers were complicit in the attack,” he added.
According to Vanguard, government spokesmen reported that five security men were fatalities in the Saturday morning attack in Yelewata and the nearby village of Dauda. Utoo tells TruthNigeria that none of his relatives confirm that security men died in the Yelewata attack.
On Monday, June 16, Governor Alia was complaining of narrative problems, according to The Cable, since a bloc of the ruling party in the state, The All-Progressives Congress, was refusing to bow to the conventional narrative claiming the killing was linked to the so-called farmer-herder clash. But in rebellion against the governor, the North Central Peace Advocates were calling the rising wave of violence in Benue as a “politically motivated campaign of terror”, insisting that the perpetrators are not herders but “foreign-backed terrorists.”
Night of Tears and Sorrows
Yet, Saturday, June 14, 2025, will forever remain a nightmare for the Tsegba family, who lost five members in the Yelewata massacre.
It was a night of tears and sorrow as 100 heavily armed Fulani Islamists, riding on motorcycles in groups of three, chanting “Allahu Akbar” and speaking Hausa and Fulfulde, unleashed mayhem on the Yelewata community in Guma County (Local Government Area) between midnight on Friday, June 13.
The attackers went house to house, slashing Christian residents and setting their corpses on fire.
As the terrible night gave way to dawn, more than 200 corpses, many burnt beyond recognition, were recovered. More bodies were later found in nearby bushes.
Most of the victims were children, pregnant women, lactating mothers, and displaced Christian refugees who had relocated to Yelewata after their original communities were destroyed in previous attacks by Fulani terrorists.
“Fulani Jihadists Slashed and Burned My Grandmother and Four Sisters” — Lucy Tsegba

Lucy Tsegba, a medical graduate of the University of Mkar, Gboko, Benue State, recounted to TruthNigeria in a phone interview how her grandmother and four sisters were gruesomely murdered.
“I lost my grandmother, Mrs. Victoria Tsegba, and four sisters: Mary Mom Tsegba, Dorathy Tyojime Tsegba, Msendoo Uwa Tsegba, and Perpetual Akura Tsegba in the attack,” Tsegba said.
“My parents and I were in Makurdi when the attack occurred.”
“My younger sister, Mary, who also died, called me at about 1:00 a.m. local time on Saturday, June 14, 2025, saying Fulani terrorists were attacking nearby neighborhoods. I encouraged her to stay strong and keep the faith. When I tried calling her again 30 minutes later, her number was no longer reachable.”
“I also called my father, who was in Makurdi. He said there was no need to panic and promised to head to Yelewata at daybreak.”
“As promised, my father went back to Yelewata to check on my grandmother and sisters, only to find their charred remains. When I called him the first time, he hid the truth from me. But when I called again, he broke down in tears and could no longer speak.”
“Confused and alarmed, I rushed to Yelewata to meet him. I arrived to find the burnt bodies of my grandmother and sisters. We quickly wrapped them, buried them, and fled for fear of a return attack.”
“My grandmother, Victoria Tsegba, was the only mother I ever knew, as I grew up in her care.”
“My sister Mary was a student at Nasarawa State University, Keffi. She was supposed to resume classes on Sunday, June 15, 2025, before this tragedy struck.”
127 Identified Victims Named
Franc Utoo criticized government officials for downplaying the scale of the massacre.
“I’ve been devastated since the midnight of Friday, June 13, and the early hours of Saturday, June 14, 2025,” Utoo said. “I want to correct the misleading information being circulated by government officials. Between 200 and 300 people were killed by the rampaging Fulani terrorists.”
“The government officials always downgrade the number of casualties because they don’t want the international community to know the extent of the murders. They want a media blackout,” Utoo said.
Utoo compiled a list of 127 names of persons he knows were killed to subvert the claim of the President’s spokesman who said 59 people were fatalities.
Ekani Olikita is a Conflict Reporter for TruthNigeria.