With tears streaming down her face, a woman in a faded wrapper clutches a placard that reads, “Apa, a community of widows.” Around her, hundreds of others march silently, their pain etched into each step through the dusty streets of Ugbokpo, the administrative heart of Nigeria’s Apa Local Government Area.
The women, drawn from villages recently devastated by violent herdsmen attacks, gathered Tuesday morning in what they called a cry for justice. They say they are tired of burying husbands, sons, and neighbours and of waiting for help that never comes.
Under the banner The Voice of the Voiceless Women in Apa, they staged a protest following fresh attacks last Sunday that reportedly killed 28 people across four communities, Ijaha, Ibele, Ochekwu, and Edikwu Ankpali leaving many more wounded.
“They kill our husbands in front of us. We’re now widows, not because of illness or old age, but because the government has refused to protect us,” said one protest leader, who asked to remain unnamed for fear of reprisal. “We are not just mourning, we are surviving.”
Clad in black and bearing placards with messages like “Government has failed us” and “Fulani must go”, the women say the attacks have left entire communities in ruins. Their children are too frightened to attend school. Their farms are abandoned. Their homes stand empty.
According to a protest notification letter signed by grieving women and local hunters, armed herdsmen allegedly invaded their homes “to kill and destroy our children, husbands and dear loved ones.” The women claim the attacks are systematic and relentless, yet ignored by both state and federal authorities.
“There is a silence that kills,” said another protester. “Even Boko Haram does not go door-to-door slashing throats. What we see here is worse and it is met with silence.”
Repeated efforts to get a comment from Apa Local Government Chairman Adams Ocheiga were unsuccessful. Security officials have also declined to speak on the record about the attacks or efforts to prevent further bloodshed.
Analysts say the recurring violence in Benue State reflects deeper fault lines over land, identity, and state failure, as climate pressures and migration increasingly strain rural communities.
But for the women of Apa, the matter is no longer academic.
“We are a forgotten people,” the protest leader said. “But we will not be quiet while our men are slaughtered and our children raised in fear.”
As the protest ended, the women dispersed slowly, their chants fading, not in surrender, but in grief. Many returned to homes still in mourning, to fields overrun by fear, and to lives redefined by loss.
