Gunmen stormed the villages of Woro and Nuku in Kwara State’s Kaiama Local Government Area, shooting residents, abducting others, and setting homes and shops ablaze, deepening Nigeria’s Middle Belt displacement crisis as entire communities were looted. As rescue teams searched the ruins, the death toll rose steadily, from 75 to 78, then to 162, and eventually to more than 170, according to humanitarian and rights groups, as bodies were recovered and assessments updated.
The massacre was not an isolated incident. It was the latest episode in a long-running cycle of violence that has killed thousands and displaced hundreds of thousands across Nigeria’s Middle Belt. Yet beyond the bloodshed lies another, less visible crisis. In displacement camps and razed villages, survivors face what many describe as a second assault: corruption that diverts humanitarian funds, bureaucratic obstruction that stalls rebuilding, and the persistent misidentification of perpetrators that undermines any real chance of security.
This reality is laid bare in video testimony from a foreign humanitarian worker in Yelwada, where an earlier attack killed 300 people and destroyed more than 100 homes. Speaking from the field, he describes not only violence, but a system that exploits displacement rather than resolves it.
The 300 Million Naira Market That Never Was
According to the foreign humanitarian worker, efforts to rebuild Yelwada’s destroyed market quickly ran into official resistance. He said he approached the state humanitarian commissioner to explain his plans.
“I had to go to the humanitarian commissioner and let them know my desire, what I was supposed to do,” he said. “And I was directed that I’m not allowed to build the market. They said the government has plans to build it.”
Those plans, he said, never materialised.
“They said they would send the plan tomorrow, maybe in two days. I waited over two weeks, nothing. I kept asking, so what is happening? When are we going to build the market?”
When a proposal eventually arrived, it stunned him. The government had budgeted 300 million naira for the market. By his estimate, the entire project should cost 50 to 60 million naira.
“I said, what market in any village or town is worth 300 million naira? Not one. Even in cities, which city has a 300 million naira market? Very few.”
He refused to participate.
“My personal opinion is that people are using funds meant for the persecuted and the afflicted. Christian or Muslim, it doesn’t matter. People are suffering in Nigeria, and the money meant to rebuild, to feed, to help them is not reaching them.”
One Billion Naira for 66 Homes
He described another project outside Yelwada that, in his account, illustrated the scale of the problem even more starkly.
“They said they’re building 66 homes for one billion naira,” he said. “I would build 3,000 homes for one billion naira.”
By his calculation, the official budget translates to roughly 15 million naira per house, far above local construction costs. The difference, he argued, represents resources that will never reach displaced families.
“And so there’s an issue,” he said simply. “People are dying.”
Grass Shelters and Quarterly Aid
While hundreds of millions and billions are allocated on paper, displaced families live in desperate conditions. The foreign humanitarian worker described a recent visit to an IDP camp in Agagwe, where most residents had been forcibly displaced by violence.
“They’re living in grass houses, full families,” he said. “They said they receive money from the government maybe once every three or four months. They have no food. They have no home. Nothing.”
For many, returning to their land is a death sentence.
“If they go back, they’re killed,” he said. “Even where we went, a man was killed one day before because he tried to go to his farm. They ambushed him. I saw his head cut in half. This is what people are facing.”
Violence Without Protection
The February 4 attacks in Woro and Nuku followed a familiar pattern: armed men entering villages, killing residents, burning homes and markets, and forcing survivors to flee. Despite years of similar attacks across the Middle Belt, communities say protection remains absent.
According to the foreign humanitarian worker, rebuilding without security is meaningless.
“The destruction has been done. The people have been killed. We can’t change that,” he said. “But the government has to protect its people. This cannot happen again. You cannot have 300 people killed in their own village.”
Yet it did happen again.
Misidentifying the Perpetrators
In the aftermath of the Kwara attack, some officials attributed the violence to Islamist groups such as Boko Haram, ISWAP, or Lakurawa. The foreign humanitarian worker directly challenged this narrative.
“The official terrorist groups are not the primary perpetrators against Christians in Nigeria,” he said. “The mass killing and mass displacement in the Middle Belt is being done by Fulani militias.”
According to his account, Boko Haram operates mainly in Borno and Yobe states, while Middle Belt attacks follow a different pattern.
“Boko Haram didn’t burn Yelwada,” he said. “Plateau, Riyom, Zika, Miango, it was not Boko Haram. It was Fulani terrorists. Please do not get it wrong. This is the truth.”
He warned that misidentification misdirects security responses and allows attackers to operate with impunity.
When Corruption and Violence Converge
The foreign humanitarian worker’s testimony points to a system where insecurity and corruption reinforce each other. Violence produces displacement. Displacement attracts humanitarian funding. Inflated contracts then turn suffering into profit.
The result, he said, is a perverse incentive structure where crises persist because they benefit those meant to resolve them.
“Funds are supposed to be reaching people to rebuild, to eat, to survive,” he said. “And they are not making it to them.”
A Call for Accountability
He called for transparency, accountability, and protection.
“There needs to be purity within funds and within government,” he said. “Do things openly. Have accountability. Protect the people.”
Nigerian authorities have repeatedly denied allegations of diversion of humanitarian funds and maintain that security operations are ongoing in affected areas. However, attacks such as those in Woro and Nuku continue to raise questions about both effectiveness and intent.
As bodies were still being recovered in Kwara State, the foreign humanitarian worker’s warning echoed with renewed urgency.
“This cannot happen again,” he said.
But it did.
Without accurate identification of perpetrators, genuine protection for vulnerable communities, and transparency in humanitarian spending, Nigeria’s Middle Belt remains trapped in a cycle where displacement follows violence, corruption follows displacement, and accountability never arrives.
And until that cycle is broken, people will keep dying.
