By Sar Terver
As January 10 approaches, a heavy mix of hope and fear hangs over Kadarko, a farming community in Nasarawa State — struggling to recover from months of violence, displacement, and grief, arising from worsening insecurity.
Hundreds of residents currently taking refuge in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in Makurdi feel that the plan to return home is not merely a journey back, it is a gamble with safety.
At the centre of the anxiety is the United Farmers Association in the Benue Valley, whose members say patience has worn thin after what they view as sustained attacks, kidnappings, sexual violence, and official indifference.
In a press statement dated January 1, 2026, addressed to the chairman of the Nigeria Union Congress (NUJ), Nasarawa state, the Association painted a fierce portrait of life in Kadarko, particularly during the 2025 festive season, alleging that repeated warnings and intelligence shared with authorities failed to trigger meaningful security action.
“Our hearts are heavy with grave concern,” said the association’s president, Chief Denen Dennis Gbongbon, as he recounted what he described as a wave of coordinated attacks across farming Communities in parts of Nasarawa and Benue States.
According to Gbongbon, insecurity worsened significantly between November and December 2025. “Between November and December 2025, we recorded 47 cases of kidnapping in Kadarko town, and all the victims are Tiv and Ibo. Nobody is safe here. If they are not kidnapping, they are killing,” he lamented.
One of the cases cited by the association was the abduction of Pastor John Okafar of the Deeper Life Bible Church, who was kidnapped in Kadarko on Christmas Day and released five days later after a ransom payment reportedly amounting to about N5 million.
Beyond the figures, Gbongbon said the human toll of the crisis has been devastating; families torn apart, farms abandoned, women violated, and entire communities displaced.
In unusually blunt language, the farmers’ leader accused some security personnel, traditional rulers, and community leaders of complicity, an allegation he said must be independently investigated by the Department of State Services (DSS).
“Instead of the security agencies to protect the vulnerable farmers here, they are rather protecting the bandits, doing kidnapping activities with them, sharing ransom, negotiating for release of victims, collecting money from victims to pay to bandits,” Gbongbon alleged.
“The police are the ones that collect money from victims to go and pay to the bandits to rescue them. This is suspicious and we are telling the whole world that this is what is happening in Kadarko.”
He further claimed that the suspected bandits operate from camps located close to the town.
“Let us be sincere, the bandits in Kadarko have their camps just about four kilometers away from town here. That is where all the kidnappings and rape cases are done. They come to the town here and take people unharmed to their camp there,” he revealed.
Gbongbon alleged that ransom collections were often coordinated locally. “The chief of Kadarko and the police will collect ransom from the families to go and pay. The police have never arrested even one bandit. This thing has been happening for over years,” he lamented.
Despite the severity of the accusations, the farmers insist they are not calling for retaliation but for protection and accountability. Their central demand is a visible, sustained, and investigative security presence in Kadarko ahead of the planned return of displaced residents.
“The DSS must come and do investigation in Kadarko so that we will have peace here. Now that we are planning to return our IDPs that are taking refuge in Makurdi, we want the DSS to come fully to Kadarko.”
He went further, calling for an unprecedented security step. “We are calling on the Director of DSS Nasarawa State Command to move his office to Kadarko and ensure that these criminals are arrested.
“We know them, we know their locations, we have their names, we have their phone numbers, we know their hideouts, we are ready to identify them. I have a place that I can give them to use as temporary office so that they can protect us”, Gbongbon said.
The farmers said they plan to return displaced residents currently sheltering at the Makurdi International Market IDP camp alongside Yelwata IDPs back to Kadarko on January 10, 2026, hence the urgency of their appeal.
In addition to security deployment, the association made further demands.
“Our second appeal is for President Bola Tinubu to urgently call Governor Abdullahi Sule and the Commissioner of Police to release 394 corpses of our people that they have kept in their custody, so that we will bury them and go on with our lives,” Gbongbon insisted.
He also appealed for logistical support for resettlement. “Governor Sule and Nasarawa SEMA should immediately release vehicles that will return our people from Makurdi IDP camp to Kadarko. We have places to accommodate them. We are going to share our conveniences with them while government makes permanent arrangements.”
In a notable departure from ethnic framing common in Middle Belt conflicts, Gbongbon rejected the narrative of a farmers–herders crisis, insisting the violence cuts across Communities.
“We are calling on all and sundry to commit to peace building. We need peace, that’s why we are living together. You see all those communities here: Tiv people, Fulani people, Hausa people and Eggon people. Our problem is not about tribe”, the farmers’ leader said.
He added that Fulani residents have also suffered attacks. “About three days ago, three Fulani women were raped and killed by the same bandits here. That is to tell you that we don’t have problem among ourselves. We are all victims.”
Gbongbon, however, alleged that the violence was politically motivated.
“The people that are hired to kidnap and kill us are doing that to the advantage of Alago politicians who want to take power by all means,” he claimed, adding that while such claims require investigation, “internally, we don’t have any problem.”
Meanwhile, some government officials and traditional rulers accused by the farmers; including the Chairman of Keana Local Government Area, Hon. Adamu Aboki, and the Chief of Kadarko, Alhaji Umaru Usman Dodo, in their previous interaction with this reporter on the repeated accusations, denied the allegations, describing them as unfounded and misleading.
As displaced families weigh the risks of returning home, Kadarko has become a symbol of a wider dilemma confronting rural communities across Nigeria’s Middle Belt: whether official security assurances will translate into real protection on the ground, or whether the journey home will reopen wounds that have yet-to-heal.
