• Introduction.
  It has become imperative for the nation and the International Community to know that genocide is being waged against the Tiv in Taraba State of Nigeria.
  These Tiv people are bona fide indigenous citizens of Nigeria located by birth and domain in Taraba State, the land of their ancestors.
  Since April this year, 2019, the Tiv have been victims of a systemic barbaric genocide.
  This incremental genocide has been ongoing as far back as 1977 in recent times, after the creation of Gongola State in 1976 and the subsequent creation of Taraba State in 1991.  
  The Jukun tribe is the main perpetrator of this heinous crime.
  There is abundant evidence; the Jukun tribe has planned, instigated, aided and abated these atrocities against the Tiv people.  The Jukun tribe has from time to time set upon the Tiv; burning their homes and subjecting them to inhumane tortures and degradations, killing them en masse, looting their properties then occupying their lands, farms and renaming their towns and villages. In 2001, this genocide in Taraba state spilled over into Benue State and precipitated one of the darkest historical events of Nigeria, when the Nigerian Army was used during the Obasanjo Administration, to take sides with the Jukun tribe and gruesomely ransacked parts of Tivland in Eastern Benue State, adjoining Taraba State.  Hundreds of; women, children and other defenseless unarmed citizens were mowed down, butchered and incinerated by the Nigerian Army. The army has since apologized for its despicable role in the mass killings of the Tiv in 2001, but the Jukun have neither shown remorse nor stopped the horrendous violations of Tiv human rights in Taraba state.
  
  Governor Darius Ishaku and the Aku Uka as catalyst in the genocide.The new momentum in the orgy of violence became evident at the re-election of Governor Darius Ishaku, who apparently had covenanted with the Jukun to finish the job, as campaign promise, to erase Tiv presence from Taraba state, and most especially from Wukari, Ibi, Takum and Donga Local Governments. 
  On Thursday, 4th September 2019, when President Buhari sought to mediate in the ongoing pogrom, at the Yar Adua Centre in Abuja, not a single Tiv person from Taraba was allowed to interrupt the smooth flow of Jukun vitriol against them as illegal aliens, ingrates and sub-humans not fit to participate in the traditional administration of the state except as voiceless slaves. The Governor and the Aku Uka gave the reason why the genocide is irreversible. In a bold act of treasonable felony, Governor Darius Ishaku verbally desecrated the Nigerian Republican Constitution as an illegal document that cannot match the hallowed Jukun history and traditions, which the Jukun were apparently on a mission to re-establish as the basis to govern Taraba state.
   While Nigeria is a republic, in Jukun land of Taraba State, a Kwararafa Kingdom flourishes and is superior to the Constitution according to Governor Darius Ishaku. In Jukunland and Chiefdom, there can only be rulers and slaves. In the Jukun imaginary the Jukun are rulers and the Tiv are their slaves in the 21st Century. The Aku Uka, is oblivious of the reality of Nigerian Republicanism, declared ex-cathedral, at that peace meeting in Abuja that he was an heir to an ancient Kwararafa Kingdom, which he has a duty to revive. He cited Palmer the colonial historian to justify his inheritance as the most powerful entity in Northern Nigeria in the past and present, having conquered Kano Emirate Circa 1653 and 1671. He was not conceding an inch of his revivalist empire to strangers, not least of all the Tiv whom he dismissed as merely unwanted visitors whose welcome had expired! His one mission is to drive the Tiv from his chiefdom and urges the Federal Government to regiment the Tiv -Jukun boundary so that he can effectively achieve ethnic purity in his chiefdom from Tiv contamination! The  Chief has been given the impression by some of his sons that Taraba State was created for his chiefdom and the Jukun tribe and he has a moral, cultural and divine mission to resuscitate it. Tiv cries and national or even international outrage mean little to his divinity as god-king! Tiv blood is necessary in his opinion, to water the foundation of a newly resurrected Jukun Empire. 
  Past Agreements not implemented.All attempts to broker peace in the past, since the ascension of the Aku Uka in 1977, have been to no effect. All past peace agreements have not been implemented. Even when the Federal Government’s Judicial Commission of enquiry “The Justice Opene Commission” made far reaching recommendations in 2002. Before the Opene Commission, there was the Admiral Augustus Aikhomo, the Vice-President’s report on 13th August 1992 that had a Ten Point(10) agreement for peace. There was also the Jalingo Resolution on peace and reconciliation between the Jukun and Tiv in Taraba State 31st August 2003. The Jukuns and Tiv were all represented in the agreements. But as these peace agreements were subsequently jettisoned. The Taraba government lacked political will and the Aku Uka simply refused peace and prepared for a more war. All that remains for the Jukun to execute a swift genocide and redraw the geo-political map of Wukari; if the world merely watches on, ignores, or looks the other way as in the Rwanda genocide. 
  It is very apparent that the strategic intent of Taraba State Government was to obliterate Tiv presence from Taraba within the first 100 days of re election. This major goal was to be executed ahead of any other achievement, including even the appointment of the State Executive Council. The obliteration and erasure of Tiv presence in Taraba was according to credible sources; a campaign promise to be speedily fulfilled to his Jukun tribal men and women. Since April, several hundreds of Tiv settlements have been razed. Tiv commercial goods worth billions of Naira were looted and shared by the Jukun. Hundreds of Tiv unarmed citizens have been slaughtered in the most barbaric and gruesome manner. The Tiv have only one condition given to them by the Aku Uka and the Jukun; leave Taraba State or die. And even when the Army and the police are deployed to Taraba State, to end the crisis, the Government of Taraba State drafts them to protect the Jukun elite and settlements and opens up the unprotected Tiv, as soft targets to be slaughtered in their homes and on their farms by the well armed Jukun Militia.
  The Jukun-War PropagandaNigerians and the International community need to know that this stage of the genocide has been elaborately prepared. The state government has apparently, fully enabled genocide, in logistics for hard ware and propaganda. Apart from sophisticated arms being deployed in organized formations the Jukun  have elaborately designed a war propaganda and lavishly funded media outlets and paid massively for Television, Newpapers and Social Media. The main thrust of this massive propaganda is to blame the victim and win sympathy or even collaboration from undiscerning public while the genocide prevails. Jukun leaders, traditional rulers and shadow umbrella bodies in several outings on national television and the print media (see Vanguard of Monday, August 26TH 2019; Daily Trust of Tuesday, September 3rd 2019; Punch of Wednesday, September 4th 2019; and others) have canvassed the following positions:
  i. That the Jukun are heirs and leaders to the Kwararafa empire/confederacy going back to circa 14th AD.ii. That though the confederacy has since collapsed, its residual nationalities are split and scattered across 27 Nigerian States.iii. That the Tiv came into the Nigerian area circa 1836 AD and are settled on Jukun ancestral lands.iv. That the Jukun established Wukari as their capital circa 1596 AD. v. That the earliest contact between the Tiv and the Jukun was in 1914.vi. That the creation of Tiv Division by the Colonial Administration finally brought the remnant of Tiv populations previously in Wukari Federation back to Tiv Division and all Tiv people who had elected to remain in Wukari Federation from that point onwards are ‘settlers’ and ‘non indigenes’. vii. That the Tiv have no domain in Taraba and cannot therefore claim to be entitled to chiefdoms in Southern Taraba. The request for chiefdoms are at best meddlesome and a sign of ingratitude.viii. That the Tiv have been in the habit of refusing to pay taxes to Taraba State and incessantly changing place names.ix. That the Tiv are in the habit of resisting all attempts to demarcate a clear boundary between Taraba and Benue State.x. That the ‘Jukun clans’ of Wanu, Etulo, Nyifon and Agatu in Benue State. suffer ‘endless’ maltreatment in the hands of the Tiv.xi. That the Tiv have appointed a Tiv man (Ter Makurdi) as Chief over a Makurdi which according to them is a Jukun town.xii. That the Tiv must recognize their ‘foreign and settler’ status in Southern Taraba otherwise conflict in the area will be ad infinitum since no one will allow ‘foreigners ‘and ‘settlers’ to usurp their rights.xiii. That Jukun traditions and culture take precedence over the constitution of Nigeria and all rights flowing from the constitution must be subsumed under Jukun tradition and culture.
  THE JUKUN UNACCEPTABLE FALLACY AND UNWARRANTED UMBRAGE. 1. Jukun falsification of History:  The wholly fabricated Jukun Kwararafa narrative was the work of a British colonial officer, Herbert Richmond Palmer, who had translated the Kano Chronicle into English language. Palmer argued that the Jukun are a hamitic group from Yemen who entered Africa through the Nile valley and the Nigerian region through the greater Lake Chad area. It is difficult where Palmer’s exotic narrative is rooted when Jukun oral traditions are mute on the Kwararafa narrative except now, when they quote Palmer with glee and appropriate his intellectual misadventure. Palmer and colonial anthropology held up the narrative as a deliberate arm of the indirect rule policy to bolster the Jukun as a dying kingdom.  By portraying the Jukuns as Hamites Palmer wanted the Jukun to join other Hamites  in colonial historiography mandated to ‘civilize’ and dominate other groups in the colonial enterprise. He constructed a wholly fantastic tale, which he ensconced in the Colonial Library as a ‘legitimate’ reference document. According to Palmer and the Colonial Library, the Kwararafa kingdom thrived in the 13th and 14th centuries AD. The Jukun on the other hand argue that they had settled at the Wukari area by 1596  and Katakpa was the 1st Aku Uka to rule from Wukari between 1596-1615.
  It is important to set the records straight and debunk the Kwararafa myth and narrative as, not only just a discredited narrative in African historiography, on account of its hamitic undertones, but that its place in the Kano chronicle, as canvassed by Palmer, has been rejected in the scholarly works of leading world-class historians; including Professor  Abdullahi Smith, Professor Murray Last and Dr. C.C. Jacobs. The Jukun themselves and the large army of ethnic nationalities subsumed under the narrative have no dependable recollection of the Kwararafa empire and its history. There is an emerging scholarly consensus that the Kwararafa narrative is a clever forgery designed to give the Jukun, psychological boost and a false confidence to be able to carry out the hatchet job, of Tiv overlords, assigned to them by the colonial administration. Unfortunately long after the colonial flag was replaced, the myth waxes stronger among the Jukun. It has been the impetus for “we versus them” xenophobia centered in Wukari and into which ethnic feuds in the Middle Belt are being funneled. 
  All the dates peddled by Palmer in his Kwararafa narrative are completely implausible.  Palmer’s argument (see Meek 1969) that the Kwararafa empire thrived between 13th and 14th centuries has no known basis in history and is at best guess work in furtherance of an implausible fiction and at worst a monumental historical fraud.  For instance; an excavated archaeological sample at Puje, (a presumed Capital of the Kwararafa Kingdom produced, scientifically; a lone date of between 16th & 17th centuries AD (see Meulemeester 1975). This huge disparity between reality and wishful historiography proves that there is nothing from the excavation at Puje to link it to the Kwararafa narrative. The lone date is too recent to support any meaningful interpretation of the Palmeric Kwararafa narrative. Records from Baikie’s voyage on the Benue river in 1854, unfortunately; describe the Jukun as ‘dejected, degraded and poor people wearing vegetable leaves to cover their private parts’ (Crowther 1854) suggesting the Jukun had a different reality from that envisaged in Palmer’s concocted Kwararafa narrative.
  2. The Establishment of Wukari town.The Jukun falsify history when they claim to have founded Wukari circa 1596. Wukari or Waka (in Tiv) was established circa 1840 after the Jukun had been defeated by the Fulani and the Chamba and scampered for succor with the Tiv already established at Waka. This is a settled historical fact.  The Jukun placement of Tiv entry into the Nigerian area circa 1836 is another unfortunate distortion because it is a well-established fact that the Tiv were settled in the Southern Taraba area well before Wukari was founded circa 1840. The work of MS Garbosa ll the 7th King of Donga  (see Labaran Chambawa ala al- Amuransu 1956) shows an interface between the Tiv and the Chamba  by 1830 in the southern Taraba area. Similarly, information from Koelle’s Polyglotta  Africana (1854) indicates interface between the Tiv and the Chamba as early as 1825 in the southern Taraba area. While Tiv oral traditions are replete with stories about relations with the Chamba at the beginning of the 19th century, there is virtually little or no information about the Jukun implying that the Jukun were not major players in the southern Taraba area or the Benue valley at the beginning of the 19th century. In fact, the Tiv were established in the southern Taraba area well before Wukari was founded in 1840. 
  While every Nigerian group or ethnic nationality, in the country, has a right and a duty to write their history, it is irresponsible to falsify these histories and hold them up against other groups. Prior to the establishment of the UN in October 1945, no independent nationality needed to take permission from anybody before settling anywhere. Empires and states expanded as they wished and were able. Even Europeans had keyed into the time, by sitting in the Berlin conference of 1884-1885 to partition Africa to advance their colonial enterprise.  People and groups on any territory by 1945, have rights to those territories and those rights are covered by the UN’S several human rights instruments and it is disingenuous to manipulate history to question those rights.
  3. Tiv Domain in Taraba traditional rulership.The Jukun argument that the Tiv have no domain in the Benue valley, and therefore should not aspire to traditional ruler ship is as provocative as is historically baseless. The truth is that before the arrival of the British and the advent of colonialism, the Benue valley was a multi cultural area in which the Tiv and other ethnic groups co-habited with minimal rancor. Much of the area, known as Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba States today, was the defunct Benue Province.  The southern Taraba area, which was then part of the Benue Province was known as Wukari Federation ( Wukari, Ibi, Donga, Takum and Ussa) inhabited by the Tiv, Kuteb, Jukun, Chamba, Hausa and Ichen ethnic groups. The Tiv are known to have not only resisted Fulani Jihadists incursions into the Benue valley but also forestalled attempts by the Fulani to overrun the valley with Jihadi flags. The Tiv were also, the main group in the Benue valley to consistently resist the incursions of the British into the Benue valley. Prior to these British incursions, the Tiv had thriving commercial relations with the Igbira on the Benue river where fish, ivory and Tiv textiles were exchanged. (see Baikie 1854). 
  4. Tiv Republicanism. The impression given by the Taraba State Governor and the Aku Uka of the Tiv in Taraba as subordinate peoples or vassals is unfortunate. It must be stated that the Tiv civilization and government before the advent of the British was very advanced. The Tiv were organized as a republic where administration was collective and based on consensus and consultation of the Elders Council, the highest ruling body. With this organization the Tiv army successfully resisted British colonialism, and kept defeating the British even after they had defeated the Sokoto Caliphate 1903 and the Borno Empire in 1904.  When the Tiv were coopted in the Nigerian project at the amalgamation, the British punished them by banning their republicanism, destroying their institutions and dividing them into the Southern and Northern Protectorates, and forcefully putting part of Tivland in the Northern Protectorates under the indirect rule of the Jukun whom the British thought to reflate with Tiv economy.  All this historical facts are attestation of a unique civilized culture reeling under oppression till Nigeria became independent in 1960. Then in 1963, Nigeria now became a republic like the Tiv at last. Indirect rule ended at Independence on 1st October 1960. As a Republic in 1963, no Nigerian citizen is any body’s slave or subject. We are all citizens with Citizenship Rights enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution and Human Rights in the various UN Charters and Conventions. The Tiv as citizens of Nigeria from Taraba should not suffer discrimination in appointment into Taraba State traditional institutions and in the public services of Taraba. They do not belong to the hereditary chiefdoms of the Jukun but surely belong to their own Tiv traditional institutions within a multi-ethnic Taraba State like other ethnic entities. The Tiv should not be humiliated and suffer loss of dignity because there was supposed to have been a kingdom in antiquity that the Tiv did not belong to. They are bona fide Taraba indigenes, and need not be treated as aliens. 
  5.Tiv and Jukun Boundaries. One of the most curious duties of the National Boundaries Commission is the incessant meeting along the Taraba Benue borders. There is no other state boundary in Nigeria that derives attention and is being sought for demarcation and delimitation as the Taraba/Benue border. It is now evident that the attempts to draw a line along the British ring policy is being canvassed by the Taraba State to forcibly push the Tiv of Taraba outside that state to a state which does not belong to them. The Tiv of Taraba are of Taraba. The Jukun of Benue are of Benue. The misconception that Taraba state was created for the Jukun and Benue state is for the Tiv is nothing more than an egregious misconception or mischief. On the Benue state side, all ethnic nationalities in the state are Nigerian citizens of Benue State. The Jukun in Benue belong to Benue State so why can’t the Tiv of Taraba belong to Taraba State?
  It is important to underscore the fact that the Tiv-Jukun crisis in Taraba is not about boundary disputes. It is the exercise of raw power over the hapless Tiv who are poor farmers and have no protection from traditional and political hegemons. Prior to the establishment of the colonial administration in the general area, the Tiv and the Jukun who had interspaced with each other in the settlement of the area did not recognize any border separating them from each other. In fact Ajayi Crowther had asked for the boundary between the Tiv and the Jukun in 1854 during the William Balfour Baikie’s voyage on the Benue river and his informant put the fingers of his two hands into each other to underscore the difficulty of identifying a boundary between the two groups. The arbitrary attempts to impose a boundary between the two groups using the ‘ring fence’ policy did not work. Subsequent attempts to impose boundaries between the Tiv and the Jukun following the creation of Gongola (1976) and Taraba (1991) States still did not work because the Tiv are settled contiguously and continuously from Benue into southern Taraba. They are settled since before colonialism in Donga, which does not even share boundaries with Benue State.
  It is the Jukun insistence that Gongola (and later Taraba) were created for them while Benue was created for the Tiv that is at the heart of the crisis. It is also this insistence that explains why every time the Jukun instigate genocidal attacks on the Tiv; by killing and forcing them to flee southern Taraba, they normally take over their ancestral lands to ensure that even when they return it would be impossible for them to reclaim their ancestral lands. This is how the incremental genocide against the Tiv is being waged. This is why the Jukun of Wukari used the 1990-1992 crisis to take over the lands of Tiv people fleeing Wukari for the establishment of the Kwararafa University as well what is today the Wukari Mechanic Village, to mention but a few. 
  Several internal and international borders in Africa have ethnic and linguistic groups straddling them. No modern state can survive the confusion that will follow, the wishes of those who would forcibly remove by genocidal strategies, others because they consider themselves, as having exclusive rights to such spaces, by raw power and undemocratic means. The Jukun in their drama of hate against the Tiv have never paused to ask what if other nationalities in the 27 states they claim their Kwararafa kith and kin are spread in Nigeria wake up to ask these residual Kwararafa nationalities to go back to meet the Jukun of Taraba because that is where they all should belong?
  At the advent of colonial rule, Tiv country had extended 100 miles above Lokoja to Ibi covering twenty thousand square miles on both banks of the Benue river (see Wide World Magazine Vol X, October 1902-March 1903). The Tiv are known to have resisted the Provincial boundaries in 1902, which balkanized their ancestral territories between Benue and Plateau Provinces, Benue and Muri as well as between Benue and Ogoja. The balkanization of the Tiv in these different provinces elicited no resistance from the Jukun who were heavily indebted to the Tiv for protecting them from Fulani attacks coming from Misau and Wase in 1837 and Hausa attacks at Abetse in 1906. 
  Irked by the Tiv protective role in the Benue valley, the British unleashed an obnoxious colonial policy on the Tiv. Aside from incessant balkanization, some Tiv clans were placed under the Aku Uka of Wukari under the indirect rule policy. In a further attempt to breach Tiv territory, the colonial administration introduced a ring fence policy in 1918, which created a road between Abetse and Wukari traversing major Tiv villages including Agasha, Tyulen, Anyiin, Gbeji, Vaase and others. The idea was to force the Tiv to relocate from the northern side of the road to the southern side. Similar  ‘ring fence’ attempts were also made in the Takum and Kashimbila traversing several Tiv settlements and territories aimed at forcing the Tiv out of the Wukari Federation. The ring fence policy was soon abandoned because it could not extricate 10 Tiv clans from the Wukari Federation. The colonial government also recognized that extricating these clans would undermine the economy of the Wukari Federation that depended heavily on taxes coming from the Tiv clans. In 1922/23 the British appointed village heads over the Tiv villages in the Wukari Federation. Similar village heads were appointed over Jukun villages and other ethnic groups in the Wukari Federation.  Successive and discriminatory upgrade of these village heads since independence have elevated  those of the Jukuns to several chiefdoms of third class status. The ten Tiv village heads in Wukari have not been upgraded since 1922!!. 
  When the Tiv people of Taraba agitate for chiefdoms, they are asking for the upgrade of these village heads, which will bring them at least up to the status of third class chiefs as the Jukun and other ethnic counterparts in Taraba State. The Tiv do not seek to be made Jukun chiefs that are hereditary or chiefs over the Jukun tribe. They wish to be chiefs over their ancestral lands in Taraba State just like other ethic groups. Governor Ishaku’s deliberate misunderstanding of this legitimate aspiration of his Tiv citizens is unfortunate. Instead of seeing this as a call for justice, the Taraba State government and the Wukari Traditional Council have consistently and wrongly maintained that the Tiv have no domain in Taraba State. This is extremely troubling and unfortunate because all the colonial census figures in the Wukari Federation (see NAKPROF/4/31/AR/REP/W/7) put Tiv population ahead of the Jukun. This is why the Tiv have continued to sustain the economy of Taraba to date. The recent genocidal attempts to evict the Tiv from Taraba makes Taraba state a crime scene and the Governor of Taraba and the Aku Uka the chief perpetrators, enablers and enforcers of the crime of genocide.
  6. Changing of names of Tiv Towns, settlements and villages. The Jukun charge that the Tiv have changed the names of Jukun settlements is a blatant misinformation. It is not true. In fact, the reverse is the case. It is the Jukun who in an attempt to rewrite the historical geography of the Taraba area that is changing the names of Tiv settlements. This change of names is great evidence of the strategic intent to commit genocide by the Jukun. Very often the change of settlement names is preceded by violence. During his tenure as governor, Darius Ishaku made it state policy.  The agenda is to wipe out all historical traces of the Tiv from Taraba landscape. As of today, the Jukun and their political leaders with the active support of the Aku Uka’s Palace have forcefully changed 25 Tiv place names between Wukari, Takum and Ibi. The table below shows these names.
  S/NLocal Government AreaTiv Place nameJukun Name1WukariWakaWukari2WukariAyuTsokondi3WukariGenyiRafin- Kada4WukariTse AbagyeNakambo5WukariTse-DaaNdodaa6WukariTsekeChinkai7WukariSanger- AnyiChonku8WukariTsuma IwagaZonduku9WukariTor MusaJabwaje10WukariTse KarkirChudan11WukariToho AbanyoGidan Sule12WukariIkperenKamberi13WukariAnengaByepyi14WukariGorlrim BidiBadakoshi15WukariAnyam KweverBichi16WukariTse VendagorKunatani17WukariTse KanyoonAdigbando18WukariAdazenkeRiti19WukariAsodiSondi20WukariTine NuneGindin Dorowa21WukariGborgborAgando-nike22IbiIgpur AnyogoGishirin Hassan23GassolDan AnachaKwararafa24TakumAmaduNukuba25TakumPevaChanchangi
  
  Astonishing changes have also been made in the naming of polling stations in Taraba State and gerrymandering of constituencies. All electoral wards in Taraba State have been cleverly gerrymandered against the Tiv. Out of 1,952 polling units in the state, only 28 bear Tiv names whereas as far back as 1992, the Ugondu Tiv Community of Donga Local Government alone had 23 polling units with voter strength of over 12,000 voters. 
  7. Staggering Tiv contribution to Taraba economy.Arguments about the refusal of the Tiv to pay taxes to the Taraba State Government are also made in bad faith, not true and a mere denial of the obvious. Such arguments, ignore the huge contributions the Tiv of Taraba have continued to make to the area going back to the colonial period. The Wukari annual tax census between 1933-1946 consistently showed the Tiv population ahead of the Jukun population. As a taxable population, it enabled the colonial office in Wukari to not only balance its budget but to also sustain its services. It was the attempt to strengthen the contribution of the Tiv to the economy of Wukari that the colonial government brought several independent Tiv districts in Abetse to Wukari to boost the revenue projection of the central colonial administration. Out of a projected tax income of One thousand nine hundred and eighty pounds, the Tiv alone were expected to contribute seven hundred and fourteen pounds, two shillings and six pence. The Tiv of Taraba are predominantly crop farmers and are literally feeding the rural and urban populations of  Taraba. The big markets of southern Taraba including Peva, Wukari, Takum, Ibi, Donga and Dan Anacha are big because the Tiv take their farm produce there and there is no way any can discountenance such contribution. The Tiv in Taraba are  over taxed due to various levies imposed on their farm products in the many markets where the tax collectors are all non Tiv.
  8. The Jukun of Benue in Abinsi The Jukun of Benue recently in copycat fashion, rented space in some Newspapers complaining of marginalization. These complaints merely mask the ongoing genocide of the Jukun in Taraba against the Tiv of Taraba. On the Benue side no Jukun life is threatened, nobody is telling them to pack and go to Wukari the home of Jukun Kingdom and the Aku Uka. Obviously they are dancing to distant drums of warmongers to justify the atrocities against the Tiv in Taraba. But the Jukun argument of marginalization in Benue State is ill motivated and tacitly designed to undermine peace and tranquility in Benue State. It is also an attempt to import crisis currently going on between the Tiv and Jukun of Taraba into Benue State. Most of the issues canvassed are blatant lies intended to wrongly portray the Tiv as always in a state of conflict with their neighbors. The Jukun in Benue State recognize that they are in Benue State with other groups and are very happy to share the Benue space with other groups who have been here since the colonial period. We also know that besides attempts to antagonize the Tiv by imposing Audu Dan Afoda as Chief of Makurdi in 1916, such impositions and hostile antagonisms are not existent in Benue. Each ethnic nationality including ‘residual Kwararafa ethnicities’ is given latitude in the state to pursue and develop their culture without interference from other groups. The argument is a diversion to blindfold Nigerians from looking into the issues of marginalization, targeted killings, destruction of Tiv settlements, denial of indigene status, renaming of place names, forceful confiscation of ancestral lands and several other crimes and human rights violations against the Tiv of Taraba State. 
  9. Makurdi does not belong to the Jukun.It is the height of mischief for the Jukun in Benue or elsewhere, to claim Makurdi as a Jukun town. Considering the ‘love affair’ between the Jukun and the British, if indeed Makurdi was a Jukun town, the British would have not hesitated a minute giving it to them instead of to another British enabler Audu Dan Afoda,  a Nupe man who was made the Chief of Makurdi in 1916. The Jukun must learn that settling in a particular vicinity of an emerging town does not mean you own the town. The Wurkum Jukun of Benue sure has a whole political constituency a ward where they are settled in Makurdi. Unlike the Tiv of Wukari whose settlements have been renamed, no one has renamed the Wurkum section of Makurdi town and it is irresponsible for the Jukun to claim Makurdi town and request that they be given traditional rights over the town. This is quixotic sabre rattling.
  The Tiv of Taraba are neither ‘settlers nor foreigners’. They are also not usurpers; they are citizens of this country and are seeking protection standing on the constitution of this country. It is irresponsible and criminal for the Government of Taraba State nudged by the Aku Uka to put barbaric traditions and culture ahead of the Nigerian Constitution by unleashing an irreversible genocide against the Tiv where they are being told to leave Taraba State or face death and expropriation. This is genocide.
  10. What is to be done?a. President Mohammadu Buhari should use his good offices as Commander-in-Chief to direct the Armed Forces of Nigeria to effect an immediate cessation of hostilities. We also call on the United Nations to quickly intervene in this matter, to avert escalation of the genocide across the Taraba borders. The UN should stop the Jukun tribe from waging genocide-a crime against humanity and precipitating a colossal human disaster across the Benue valley. 
  b. The Government of Taraba and the Aku Uka, have crossed the line of decency and turned Taraba state to a failed state where premeditated genocide is being waged against a particular ethnic group. The situation is very similar to the Rwanda genocide when the animosities between the Tutsis and Hutus ended up with a senseless massacre of the Tutsis by the Hutus. The Federal government must institute a comprehensive administrative inquiry (since it has no constitutional powers to set up a high-powered Judicial Commission of Enquiry), now, to investigate all those who have taken part in the genocide against the Tiv and the circumstances that warranted this incremental genocide. Nigeria’s dignity as a nation cannot be restored unless justice and the prosecution of criminals in this pogrom are achieved.
  c. The National Assembly, the Judiciary and the Presidency are hereby put on notice that an official of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a state governor, Governor Darius Ishaku who swore on the Nigerian Constitution and the oath of allegiance has blatantly flouted these oaths. On the 4th September 2019, he repudiated his oath of office by denouncing the Nigerian Constitution, as being inferior to Jukun Tradition and historical practices of conquest and plunder, which he declared are now the sacred rules of his government. He did this in grand style with harangue and tantrum, at a public gathering no less significant than his swearing ceremony. He on the same day, showed open animosity and antagonism and refused openly to show justice to his Tiv constituents. A state of emergency should be declared in Taraba State and Darius Ishaku be held to account for his treason, while the Federal Judicial Commission of enquiry sits to fish out the sacred cows behind the on going pogrom.
  d. The United Nations should offer protection to the Tiv in Taraba State since the perception of and reporting of genocide against the Tiv is affected by collective denial and political bias. Since the Tiv have no voice in Taraba State and since previous attempts to proffer solutions were rebuffed by the Aku Uka and the Taraba State government, the United Nations should immediately offer protection to the embattled, vulnerable and endangered Tiv population in Taraba State. 
  e. The Nigerian Independent Electoral Commission, should be directed to restore Tiv political rights by restoring polling booths, delimiting constituencies in Tiv areas and ensuring the registration of Tiv to vote in elections taking place in Taraba State. The massive disenfranchisement of the Tiv in Wukari, Ibi, Takum and Donga Local Governments, has denied them, the most sacred right of citizenship- the right to vote.
  f. Nigeria and the International Community must protect vulnerable groups from abuse of power. The Tiv need to be compensated for all their losses. They have suffered horrendous human rights abuses and serious bodily and mental harm, loss of lives, homes and properties. They have been deliberately inflicted with unacceptable conditions of living calculated to exterminate them. They have suffered and continue to suffer genocide whose UN Convention was acceded to by Nigeria July 27 2009.  Enough is enough. This inhumanity should now be brought to an end.

Signed by Taraba Tiv People’s Association:

Yakubu Tor-Agbidye, Ph.D-Donga Local Government Area

Hon David Orbee Uchiv-Wukari Local Government Area

Hon King David Mtuem-Wukari Local Government Area

Hon Julius Kwagh-kar-Ibi Local Government Area

Hon Jacob Gbagede-Gassol Local Government Area

Hon Goodman Dahida-Takum Local Government Area

cc. The Secretary General of the United Nations

cc. The A.U. Commission.

cc. The President The International Criminal Court; The Hague

cc. The Executive Secretary National Human rights     Commission.

cc. International Red Cross.

cc. Secretary to the government of the Federation.

cc. President of the Senate.

cc. Speaker House of Representatives.