Nigeria has always regarded Benue as the food basket of the nation. Today, the Middle belt region has been soaked in blood, owing to the incessant and under reported killings of its indigenes.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reports that the issue of inter-tribal conflict is not new to the region; however, its escalation is cause for concern. 1,043 people were reportedly killed in Benue between May 2023 and May 2025. Amnesty International also reported that as of July 2025, at least 510,182 people have been displaced across Benue State due to this crisis.
Agatha Akaahar’s film, ‘Black Sands’ seeks to humanise the statistics and possibly clarify hearsay. The film premiered in Lagos in late October, 2025 at a time when its relevance could not have been over emphasised. It was also screened on the 9th of July 2026 in Jos, still within the Middle belt region of the country, as part of the Creative Hustle programme under the British Council Film Lab Africa initiative.
To carry out boots-on-the-ground journalism via the filmic medium is no easy feat, especially within the ambit of a 7-minute production. Nevertheless, the film successfully portrays pastoral life in Benue rural communities before and after conflict, leaving viewers with the staying themes stemming from this juxtaposition. It is undiluted in its depictions, leaving scenes unfiltered and the characters true to their ethnic identity. The storyline chronicles the lives of four siblings in a Tiv village, going about their daily activities, until crisis ensues and ultimately separates the family in the end.
Silence is woven in and out of the storyline. Most instrumentally, it is represented by one of the main characters, Wuese, who is a deaf-mute. While women and children are most vulnerable in times of crisis, the character Wuese represents another subset of this demographic: disability.
It is important to consider, not just the figures and stats of the casualties of conflict, but the individual peculiarities of human life. Wuese can only communicate with her siblings through Nigerian sign language, which places her at a huge disadvantage when conflict announces itself in the community.
Silence can also be gleaned through the juxtaposition of the sound of pastoral life–the tilling of the soil, squabbling among children, domestic chores–with the sound of attack, which is simply cacophonic. At the film’s climax, sounds of gunshots and screaming surprise and attack viewers, depicting just how suddenly crisis distorts normal life.
While the two eldest siblings, in the heat of the disarray, leave their younger ones in a plastic drum and flee for their lives, they all contribute either to the demographic of displaced persons, or the mass of graves yet to be dug.
The family is separated, leaving behind a deaf and mute child to take care of a baby in a community, now stripped bare. Evidently, crisis effaces choice and freedom because even survivors are still victims.
The closing scene confronts viewers with Wuese’s silence. She is now tasked with the responsibility of caring for her baby sister, in a world she cannot hear or speak to. The blankness of her stare conveys the bleakness of the future she will have to confront; and this is surely the reality of many across Benue state.
The film despite its brevity, manages to evoke how easily entire lives can be altered by violence. It makes use of cultural familiarity to show that geographical location may be the only difference between the Benue people and the rest of the country. Crisis can happen anywhere and to anyone; therefore, it is the collective responsibility of every witness to this crisis, to refuse to be silent in its wake.
Writer’s Bio:
Keyukemi Usani is an undergraduate student of Law, at Babcock University, Ogun State with a keen interest in art criticism and social commentary.