Terrorists killed 12 Christians in Kwande Local Government Area, Benue State, on or around March 5. Two days later, an American missionary pointed a camera at himself and told Nigeria’s governor of Benue State exactly what he thought of the response. That video is now circulating widely and it has landed in the middle of a fierce, long-running argument about what is actually happening to Christian farming communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt.
Alex Barbir, founder of the nonprofit Building Zion, posted the video on March 6. He addressed Governor Hyacinth Alia directly, accusing him of denying that Christians in Benue face a targeted religious genocide and of failing to deploy adequate security forces to protect communities that have been repeatedly attacked. Barbir’s organisation rebuilds homes destroyed in attacks work that has brought him into repeated, direct contact with survivors in the state. Before that, he was a college football kicker in the United States. He is not a journalist or a politician. He is a man who has watched communities be destroyed and rebuilt, and destroyed again.
Among the 12 people killed in Kwande on March 5 were members of farming households in a predominantly Christian community. Their names have not been released by Benue State authorities at the time of publication. Building Zion has said it is in contact with survivors in the area. Africentra has not independently verified the specific circumstances of each death.
