BREAKING: Protest Erupts in Benue as Armed Herdsmen Kill Catholic Church Minister, Others — Makurdi–Abuja Highway Blocked

Tension has engulfed Makurdi Local Government Area of Benue State after suspected armed herdsmen launched a deadly attack on Achakpa community, killing a Catholic Church minister and several others, sparking angry protests that paralysed traffic on the Makurdi–Abuja highway on Saturday.

Enraged residents, numbering in their hundreds, poured onto the streets in the early hours of the day, barricading the busy Garba–Atson–Abagena IDP camp axis of the highway with tree branches, tyres, and placards. Chanting solidarity songs, they vowed not to vacate the road until justice was served and the killings stopped.

Eyewitnesses revealed that the attack, which struck around dawn, claimed the lives of a farmer, Tor Felafa, his son, and Mr. Francis Kulegwa, a respected senior choirmaster at Daudu Mission under the Catholic Diocese of Makurdi.

The victims were reportedly ambushed while working on their farms — a tactic residents say the assailants have increasingly adopted, monitoring villagers’ routines before striking. Several people were abducted, while others fled into nearby bushes. At press time, some residents remain missing, deepening fears of further casualties.

Benue State, long hailed as Nigeria’s “Food Basket,” has over the years become the epicentre of violent clashes between farmers and herders, with repeated cycles of killings, destruction of farmland, and mass displacement.

Local leaders have decried the incessant bloodshed, urging both the state and federal governments to step up security in rural areas. “Our communities are being wiped out in silence; this must stop,” one protester declared.

As at the time of filing this report, neither the Benue State Government nor the State Police Command had released an official statement on the attack or the ensuing protest.