In A Time Of Grief, Being There Is Everything: The President Needs To Go To Benue—He Needs To Be Where Pain Lives, Not Watching It From A Distance

A Nation in Mourning, a Leadership in Waiting

A nation does not collapse only when bullets fly or blood spills—it begins to fall apart when the living look to their leaders for comfort and find no one there. In Benue State, over 200 people—many already displaced by previous violence—were murdered in the darkness of night, their lives ended in silence, their deaths largely ignored by those meant to carry their pain. These were not nameless victims. They were mothers clutching children, elders in prayer, sons returning from farm roads. And yet, in the days that followed, what should have been a moment of national reckoning became a display of institutional detachment. There was no presidential visit. No national day of mourning. No sorrow woven into the fabric of governance. Just the cold choreography of state response—meetings, memos, and managed words.

But grief is not managed. It is felt. And when it is not shared by those in power, it hardens into something else: alienation. A President’s voice from a podium cannot reach where the soil is still red. He must go there. Because this is not just about condolence—it is about belonging. It is about whether a rural mother in Yelwata believes that her tears fall within the borders of a country that still sees her as one of its own.

In a moment like this, presence is not a courtesy—it is a duty. The dead do not need speeches. The living do. And they need them not from afar, but from the man who swore to carry the weight of the nation—not only in peace, but in pain. The presidency is not a refuge from national sorrow. It is its most sacred witness. And right now, the only road that matters is the one that leads to Benue.

The Psychological Cost of Absence
Grief is not just personal. In moments of collective tragedy, it becomes political. It is shaped, contained, or intensified by how leaders respond—or fail to. In psychology, one of the most devastating injuries to a group is abandonment in the face of trauma. When a state fails to show up for its people after such devastation, the damage is not only material—it becomes psychological and generational. Survivors begin to question their place in the nation. Communities feel emotionally exiled. A sense of invisibility begins to take root, and with it comes a dangerous erosion of trust in government, in institutions, and in the value of citizenship itself.

For the people of Benue—already displaced by years of violence, already marginalized from the corridors of power—the government’s silence deepens an old wound. It reinforces a longstanding narrative that certain lives matter less, that certain communities are heard only when politically convenient, and that rural Nigeria is not the heart of the nation but its forgotten outskirts. Presidential presence in such a moment is not ceremonial—it is essential. It says: “You are seen. You are part of us. This country is yours, too.” And when that presence is withheld, the psychological cost reverberates not just across states but across generations.

From Briefing Rooms to Broken Villages

It is common practice in Nigeria for national tragedies to be met with immediate meetings between the President and security chiefs. These gatherings often produce statements, internal memos, and public assurances that something is being done. But more often than not, the actions that follow are delayed, fragmented, or fail to reach the communities most affected. In the face of mass death, the optics of leadership matter—but so does its geography. There is a profound difference between addressing the crisis from behind a microphone in Abuja and stepping into the red soil of the village that has just buried its children.

Globally, democratic leaders understand the power of presence. When disasters strike in the United States—be it a school shooting, a hurricane, or a racial injustice—presidents are expected to show up. Whether it was Barack Obama embracing grieving parents in Newtown, Donald Trump touring hurricane-stricken areas, or Joe Biden attending the funerals of mass shooting victims, the expectation is clear: real leadership walks toward pain. Nigeria must rise to this standard. It is not an imported value. It is a universal one. A President who walks among the wounded not only consoles the nation—he reaffirms the contract between the state and its people.

Religious Sensitivities and the Perception Gap

Whether the Benue killings were explicitly religious or not, their optics have stirred deeply rooted anxieties. The victims were predominantly Christians. The perpetrators, according to local reports, were Fulani herdsmen. The President and Vice President are both Muslims. In a country as religiously diverse and emotionally complex as Nigeria, such dynamics can easily become explosive. It is not enough for the government to deny religious motive. What matters is how the silence—or response—is interpreted by the public. And interpretation, in a politically polarized society, often becomes more powerful than fact.

The absence of federal leadership in Benue risks being read not as bureaucratic delay, but as religious disinterest. This is the burden of power in divided nations: leaders must not only act justly—they must be seen to act fairly, across all lines of identity. The President’s physical presence in Benue would not just be a show of solidarity—it would be a subtle but profound statement that no Nigerian life is beneath federal attention. It would counteract dangerous narratives of bias, and it would reaffirm that this government serves all, protects all, and grieves with all—regardless of tribe, religion, or political affiliation.

Pope Leo XIV and the International Mirror

The intervention of Pope Leo XIV has transformed the Benue massacre from a national tragedy to a matter of global concern. When the spiritual leader of over a billion Catholics prays publicly for a specific Nigerian village—identifying its victims, naming its suffering, and calling for justice—it sends a message. It tells the world that something in Nigeria has pierced the conscience of the Church. It also raises the question: if the Vatican can respond, why hasn’t the Nigerian state done the same with equal urgency?

The Pope’s words now echo in Rome, London, Washington, Berlin, and beyond. Human rights organizations are paying attention. Foreign governments are watching. What was once a domestic crisis is now an international symbol of how a state treats its most vulnerable. There may soon be diplomatic consequences, but the more pressing issue is the moral one: how long can a state expect global respect when it struggles to honor its own wounded? The President’s absence is no longer a national issue alone. It is now part of how the world sees Nigeria’s leadership—and its soul.

The Distraction of 2027 in a Year of Burials

Even as blood was still drying in Benue, the political atmosphere in Abuja began to shift back toward 2027. Political alignments, internal zoning talks, power projections—all resurfaced. But the dissonance is painful. What message does it send when campaign strategies begin while fresh graves are still open? When silence follows death, but energy rises for ambition?

No administration should prioritize re-election talk when its citizens are in mourning. The path to future votes runs through present compassion. Nigerians are not asking for miracles. They are asking for visibility, fairness, and human engagement. If a government wishes to build the next chapter of national leadership, it must first close the current one with honor. And that begins by walking into Benue—not in 2027, not in theory, but now.

When the Influencer Stood in the Ashes and the President Stayed Away

While the state watched from a distance, it was VeryDarkMan, whose real name is Martins Vincent Otse, who walked into the devastation. With no official mandate, no title, and no obligation beyond conscience, he stood where sorrow thickened the air and the ground still carried the scent of blood and smoke. His phone became the nation’s reluctant mirror—showing the burnt bodies of men, women, and children, the blackened ruins of homes, and the hollow eyes of survivors too shocked to cry. What the national media blurred, he revealed. What officials would not confront, he documented. In that moment, he was not just an influencer. He was a witness. And in a country gasping for moral clarity, that act of presence—raw, imperfect, and unfiltered—became a form of leadership.

Martins Vincent Otse is not without controversy. But when he entered that ash-covered ground, he crossed into a space many with power avoid. He did not go to score points. He went because someone had to. And that is a judgment on those who didn’t.

A Gentle But Unavoidable Call: Mr. President, You Need to Go

Mr. President, you were not elected only to command the nation—you were entrusted to carry it, especially when it breaks. And right now, it is broken. Leadership, in a moment like this, is not about holding meetings or issuing statements. It is about crossing the distance between Abuja and Benue—not with policies, but with your own two feet. It is about letting the people know that they are not grieving in the shadows, that their lives are not too rural to matter, too Christian to count, or too poor to be seen.

This is not about telling Nigerians, once again, that you've ordered the security and police chiefs to act. It is not about telling the governor to unite warring groups. The people of Benue have heard all that before—and they are still burying their dead. What they need now is not instruction from above, but compassion beside them. They need to see that their President understands that healing does not come from directives—it comes from dignity. From standing where the wounds are. From showing that national power still carries human feeling.

A visit to Benue would not be a performance. It would be a reckoning. To kneel at a grave, to listen without speaking, to walk through the ash where people once prayed and slept—these are not political gestures. They are national obligations. No one else can carry that weight for you. Not an influencer. Not a governor. Not a priest. Not even a pope.

You cannot delegate sorrow. You cannot outsource human connection. And you cannot ask for peace in the future while avoiding pain in the present.

Mr. President, if you do not go—if the people of Benue bury their dead without seeing the man who leads them—it will not only be a missed opportunity. It will be a moral scar. One that this nation, and your legacy, may never fully heal from.

Go now—while there are still hearts open enough to believe you care. Go now—before silence becomes your loudest message. Go now—because when history writes this chapter, it will ask one simple question:

Where were you when your people cried for you from the grave?