The acrid smell of burning wood and shattered stained glass hung heavy over St. Paul’s Parish in Ayetwar as Rev. Fr. Benjamin Versue surveyed the smoldering remains of his life’s work. Under cover of Monday night’s darkness, suspected Fulani herdsmen had descended on the Catholic outpost—shattering windows, firing gunshots into the air, and finally setting the rectory ablaze in what the priest called a “jihadist” onslaught.
In a searing Facebook post that mixed grief with fury, Fr. Versue painted a picture of systemic betrayal—accusing the Nigerian Army of first disarming local vigilantes, then allegedly providing “logistics and intelligence” to the marauders who overran the Benue community. “They killed unarmed civilians in their sleep,” he wrote, his words carrying the weight of countless unburied corpses in Nigeria’s bleeding Middle Belt.
The attack sent terrified residents fleeing into the bush, abandoning ancestral homes now reduced to charred ruins. While casualty figures remain unverified, the priest’s account aligns with Benue’s grim pattern of herdsmen violence that has turned fertile farmlands into killing fields. His blistering indictment of Nigeria’s military—“a dwarf in giant’s clothing”—echoes growing frustrations over security forces’ failure to protect vulnerable communities.
As dawn broke over the blackened walls of St. Paul’s, Versue’s lamentations joined a chorus of unanswered cries across the region: “Blood flows like a river… a nation’s future uncertain each passing day.” With military authorities yet to respond, the flames in Ayetwar illuminate not just another night of terror, but the slow burn of a nation’s conscience.
