Who owns the road to Yelewata? by Stephanie Shaakaa

In 2025, the visit was stopped before it began. In 2026, it reached the gate and still could not get through.

Peter Obi has now been turned back from Benue twice.

The first time was in 2025, when his planned humanitarian visit became a dispute over notification and security arrangements. More than a year later, the tension returned, only this time Obi had already entered the state and was on his way to Yelewata, the community devastated by the violence of June 2025, when his convoy was stopped on the Makurdi-Gboko road and he was forced to turn back.

That should make us pause, not because Peter Obi is above criticism or because every humanitarian visit by a politician should automatically be assumed to be free of political calculation, but because the people at the end of that journey were not politicians. They were Nigerians who had already lost loved ones, homes and livelihoods and who had every reason to expect that anyone coming to see them would be allowed to do so safely.

Somewhere along the way, the story became about the visitor instead of the people he came to visit. That is the part of this episode that deserves our attention.

When Obi attempted to visit Benue in 2025, his plans were presented as humanitarian. He intended to visit displaced Nigerians, support students at a nursing school and pay courtesy visits to local leaders. The Benue Government objected that the visit had not been properly coordinated and that security arrangements could not be guaranteed without the necessary notification. Obi maintained that he had attempted to contact the governor and that the purpose of the journey was humanitarian.

There was a legitimate issue in the argument about security. A former governor and nationally prominent political figure travelling with an entourage into a troubled environment is not an ordinary movement. Authorities responsible for security have every reason to know where such a person is going and to ensure that adequate arrangements are made.

But there is a line between security coordination and political control, and Nigeria should be careful not to cross it.

A governor does not become the owner of every interaction between Nigerians simply because those Nigerians happen to live within his state. Benue is not a private estate, and displaced citizens do not become the political property of whichever government happens to be in office. Their suffering cannot belong exclusively to the government in power, nor should another Nigerian require political approval before offering them sympathy or assistance.

That distinction becomes even more important when the visitor is an opposition politician.

Peter Obi’s politics can be questioned. His presidential ambitions can be scrutinised, his motives can be debated and his supporters can be challenged. His critics are entitled to argue that humanitarian activity can also generate political visibility. That is part of democratic politics. What should not become normal is the assumption that political suspicion gives a government the authority to determine whether an opposition politician may reach vulnerable Nigerians.

If Obi’s motives are political, let his critics make that case before the Nigerian people. If he genuinely wants to help, let the people receive whatever assistance he brings, provided appropriate security arrangements are made. Nigerians are capable of making their own judgments.

The answer to political disagreement should be political argument, not control over access to suffering citizens.

Nigeria has developed an unfortunate habit of allowing ordinary expectations of courtesy to acquire the appearance of official authority. A visitor may be expected to inform the governor, and failing to do so may be discourteous. But discourtesy is not disobedience, and a convention of political courtesy should not quietly become a power that does not exist in law. Security coordination is necessary; political permission is another matter.

That is why defending Obi on this issue does not require supporting his politics. One can disagree with him completely and still recognise something fundamentally troubling about treating compassion as though it were a political offence. One can reject his presidential ambition and still believe Nigerians should be free to visit other Nigerians who are in distress.

The people at the centre of this controversy are not politicians. They are displaced families who have lost homes, livelihoods and loved ones. Their lives have already been disrupted by violence and insecurity. They should not become collateral damage in a contest between political personalities.

A confident government does not need to fear another Nigerian standing beside its citizens. If a visit creates a genuine security risk, the proper response is to secure the route, adjust the itinerary, provide protection or explain clearly why the journey cannot safely proceed. Those are the responsibilities of government.

The second episode makes the matter harder to dismiss.

In 2026, Obi again travelled to Benue, this time with Yelewata among his intended destinations. Yelewata is a community whose name became associated with the devastating violence of June 2025, when families lost loved ones and survivors were left to confront the consequences of an atrocity that remains one of the darkest chapters in the state’s recent history.

Obi was on his way there when his convoy was stopped on the Makurdi-Gboko road and he was forced to turn back.

The circumstances were not identical to those of 2025. The earlier dispute centred heavily on notification and security arrangements, while in the latest incident the police said they had been informed of the visit and had deployed personnel, even as youths reportedly blocked the road and called for Obi to turn back. The incident is being investigated.

Those differences matter, but they do not erase the uncomfortable similarity. In 2025, Obi could not complete a humanitarian visit to Benue. In 2026, he entered the state and again could not reach the community he had travelled to see.

That is why this should no longer be dismissed as a simple disagreement over protocol. Yelewata’s people have already suffered enough. Their tragedy should not become another battlefield in Nigeria’s endless political competition. They should not have to wait for political circumstances to become favourable before people who want to visit them can do so. Their pain should not become territory over which politicians establish ownership.

They are Nigerians who suffered, and that should be the first fact that matters.

The lesson is not that security requirements should be ignored. They should not. Nor is it that politicians should be allowed to move around sensitive communities without coordination. They should not. The lesson is that security institutions and political institutions must not be confused with one another. If there is a security problem, security agencies should address it. If there is a protocol issue, it should be resolved through communication. If there is a political disagreement, Nigerians should be allowed to settle it through democratic debate.

Political power is temporary. Governors leave office, parties lose elections and opposition politicians eventually either gain power or disappear from the political stage. The principles established while exercising power, however, can outlive the individuals who created them. 

A precedent that seems convenient when it hurts a political opponent can become deeply uncomfortable when the same principle is eventually used against us.

Nigeria has seen enough of that cycle.

We cannot keep telling Nigerians that we want a better country while teaching them that kindness must first pass through the machinery of political approval. We cannot preach national unity while treating every act by an opponent as a threat. And we cannot ask citizens to believe that government exists to serve them while allowing political rivalry to determine who may stand beside them in their darkest moments. Peter Obi may be an opposition politician, but the people he wanted to visit belong to no politician. They belong to Nigeria. That is why his two experiences in Benue deserve to be remembered together. The first happened in 2025, when a humanitarian visit ended in controversy over notification and security. The second came in 2026, when he again found himself unable to reach a community devastated by violence.

Different circumstances, but the same troubling question remains,when did showing compassion to Nigerians become something that requires political permission?

In a healthy democracy, the identity of the person bringing help should never matter more than the condition of the people receiving it. A humanitarian visit should certainly be coordinated where security demands coordination, but it should never become a test of political obedience.

Benue belongs to its people. Yelewata belongs to its people. The grief of Nigerians who have lost everything should never become territory over which politicians compete for control.

Because once compassion needs clearance, someone has to decide who holds the clearance.

And once someone becomes the gatekeeper of compassion, the question is no longer merely who was turned back on the road to Yelewata.