Life in an Agatu Village

A segment of the road showing one of the culverts

The findings of a writer, Msonter Anzaa, who was in Agatu during the Easter weekend.

Agatu may well be like the biblical Nazareth from which nothing good could be expected. In recent years, the otherwise remote local government area of Benue State, has become popular for rather sad reasons. It is the site of several stomach-retching incidences of well-programmed, systematically executed and lavishly funded human massacre. The Agatu massacres have a peculiar horrible quality - the invaders spare neither the elderly nor the infants. Their obvious agenda is to expunge the entire community from existence. If one only follows events there from the far comfort of the city, one would think the Fulani aggression is the only problem of the community. But as I found out when I visited Obagaji, the local government headquarters, the land of Agatu has other problems too.

For a newcomer visiting Obagaji from Makurdi, the state capital, the journey leads through Aliade, Otukpo and Ugbokpo. Even though the roads are not good, they are the standard obtained generally elsewhere in the country. That is however only true as long as one has not entered Agatu territory. The tarred road comes to an abrupt end at Ugbokpo, the Apa local government headquarters that shares a border with Oshigbudu, another Agatu community. From that point henceforth, the road is a narrow, bushy, meandering, dust-emitting, bumpy affair. At a point on the road, a first time visitor would not believe there are inhabited communities beyond. The only evidence of human activity are the farms that occasionally dot the roadside. One does not usually meet other vehicles going in one's direction or returning from the area, except an occasional lone motorcycle with both its rider and the baggage entirely encapsulated in red dust. Then suddenly, like the relief brought to a constipated individual after long straining, one bursts into a community with buildings.

The road has not improved since I first visited in 2012. There is however some evidence that an attempt was made – the numerous culverts built on the road which themselves have become part of the problem as vehicles have to meander on one side or the other. At certain points on the road, gullies have chopped deep on both sides, leaving a dangerously narrow strip of land between. Therefore, the journey is a kind of adventure. Obagaji itself hardly looks like a local government headquarters. The typical buildings are irregular rectangles of non-cemented bricks and mud, roofed in thin iron sheets with protruding sharp edges. The people live in clusters made of several family members. There is no visible tarred road in the village. The only other access point to the local government is by boat on the River Benue. An indigene told me that it is actually cheaper and easier on the river than on the land. "If you are coming by boat, you first get to Otukpo by land and board a boat. From where the boats stop, you need to take okada to Obagaji."

Obagaji has not been attacked by the herdsmen, but the schools in the community are closed because of the crisis. There are no internally displaced people’s camps in Agatu perhaps because of inaccessibility. The camps are in Ugbokpo, Apa local government. However, my host said there are as many displaced persons in Obagaji as there are in the Ugbokpo camps. "Agatu people do not like their relatives to stay in the camps. It is a thing of shame to them. Besides, most displaced people have families in Obagaji. So they are staying with their relatives," he said.

My host's compound is close to the road. That Friday evening, we heard the sound of a siren and turned just in time to see a convoy of military vans drive past. "They have gone to carry a body for burial," my host said. It was evident from the nose-covering by the soldiers that the corpse had started decomposing. There are soldiers in Obagaji who go out daily on patrol in the crisis zones. For an otherwise serene agricultural community, their presence is a biting reminder of the nightmare caused by the Fulani herdsmen not far away.

The Agatu people are mainly farmers and fishermen. Both men and women practice these trades. The local government is rich in fish. That night my host's sister brought a fish the size of an adult leg in a basin. The fisherwoman was asking for two thousand naira which my host considered too expensive. Turning to me, he said, "In the days of my grandfathers, this type of fish was not even eaten. It was used as wood to smoke fish, but now, it is becoming something."

The people are generally hospitable. After a lavish dinner of pounded yam, my host and I went to see a member of the clergy in a church nearby. Remarking that we must be good farmers, he invited us to join him at the table for a meal. In Agatu culture, it is believed that a person who often visits others when they are eating is a good farmer. "Agatu people are very welcoming. They do not let anyone maltreat a visitor to their community," my host said.

The next day, it was time to return to Makurdi. Our bus – a rather rugged assembly of disjointed iron flaps generously helping us to the Agatu dust – screamed to life. Some of the leaders of the clan came to bid us farewell. The chief of Obagaji had asked them to host us during our stay. In the course of our two-day medical outreach, two police officers and at least eight young men had kept watch at the venue. The men were members of the community in charge of security. It was a harmonious blend of both traditional and political systems working together.

As our bus meandered itself out of the village, I looked through the glasses at the clusters of aged, cracking buildings in which the people live. We apparently scared two stark naked little boys carrying water in small containers on their heads from a little stream on the road. During my first visit, I saw another group of their age at the same stream who waved at our bus as it left the village. This time we got no such friendliness even though I waved at them. Then I realized how horrific life must have turned for them since the Fulani came. I was leaving their community to return home in Makurdi. But they have no home to return to. The bushy farmlands of Agatu from which they are now being expelled by the Fulani are their only home in the world. Their great grandparents lived and died there. But now, unless the federal and state governments put a permanent end to the Fulani invasion, in the near future, rubble and decaying bodies might be the only reminder that Agatu was once home to a community of humans.

See also Calling the International Criminal Court to Benue