BENUE, APOSTOLIC PREFECTURE of. - Recently established (9 July 1934), with territory taken from the vicariate of southern Nigeria, thereafter called Onitsha-Owerri; it is the north-western part of the mother mission, between the Niger and its tributary, the Benue. Its establishment was prompted
(as were those of Calabar, Kaduna, and Jos, all created in 1934, and finally that of Ogoja, created in 1938) by the great movement 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 about 2,000,000 inhabitants, of whom approximately 250,000 are Muslims, 16,000 Protestants, and the rest pagans. According to the statistics of 1948, Catholics number 5,896, with 22,139 catechumens. The prefecture has 7 principal stations directed by 19 missionaries. The missionaries’ chief concern is to organize schools throughout the mission in the best possible way.