By Majekodunmi Oseriemen Ebhohon

No one screamed.
There was no time.
They came like dusk 
slow, quiet, red-coal fury.
The old man who could not run
was slaughtered mid-prayer.
The child who knew nothing
was beheaded, as he called “Mama.”
God posed  
like an ngbeke model  
as they tore the womb.  
Foetus and entrails gushed 
tabooing the earth  
against its will.

We buried them songless.
Not because we had no songs,
but because
our mouths forgot
how to open.

Now, the farm is still.
The hoe sleeps beside the blood.
The yam has not returned.
The birds no longer sing
over Yelewata.
They hover,
watching,
wondering
why the greedy earth
swallows so many
yet stays hungry.
But is the earth the greedy one?

We carried bodies
wrapped in silence.
We dug,
and dug,
and dug
until our hands forgot
they were hands.
Now the soil knows their names.
But the government does not.
Benue is emptying
one hut at a time,
one child at a time,
one name at a time.

We no longer count the dead.
For what use is counting
when the count means nothing?
We now count only the ones
who haven’t died yet 
because they’re next
on the herdsmen’s menu.

So, we sleep beside packed bags,
ready to run.
But to where?
Where do you run
when your soul
has already been sold
by the hands
meant to shield you?

In Benue,
there is no justice
only eulogies
no one hears.
There is no help coming.
Only headlines,
and the rustle of white paper
promising tomorrow.
But tomorrow
has forgotten the way
to our door.

They tell us: “Say their names.”
But we dare not.
For the foxes might remember 
and return for more bloodbath.
So we go numb instead 
to God,
to ghosts,
to anyone
who will not forget
that once,
a people lived here
and then,
they were
no more.

June 13, 2025