BENUE, APOSTOLIC PREFECTURE OF. — Recently established (9 July 1934), with territory taken from the Vicariate of Southern Nigeria, since renamed Onitsha-Owerri; it comprises the north-western part of the mother-mission, between the Niger and its tributary the Benue. Its establishment was prompted (along with those of Calabar, Kaduna, Jos, all created in 1934, and finally Ogoja, created in 1938) by the great wave of conversions that has taken place in Nigeria in recent decades. The prefecture was entrusted to the Congregation of the Holy Spirit, whose fathers had been working in that region since 1930.
The total population, spread over an area of approximately 75,000 sq. km., is roughly 2,000,000 inhabitants, of whom about 250,000 are Muslim, 16,000 Protestant, and the rest pagan. Catholics, according to 1948 statistics, number 5,896, with 22,139 catechumens. The prefecture has 7 main stations run by 19 missionaries. The missionaries’ chief concern is to organize the schools throughout the mission as effectively as possible.