“Otukpo main market.” He flinched while pointing in a direction. I barely heard the driver say due to the heavy rain hitting hard the vehicle, causing a great momentum of noise in the middle of the night.

“Can we make it to Markudi  by morning?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“We will if I drive”. 

Samuel, the bus driver who had been at the wheel for long and was driving with just the edge of his mind, responded.

I don’t know if I should call it a high level of aberration or I and my friend had gone wacko when we both left Kwara state, my hometown to hunt for this lady I barely know, which by chance only popped into each other on social media. From friendship, it metamorphosed into assumed love. Furthermore, to refute her skepticism about the feelings I had for her, I decided to have my first visit to Benue state, where she lives.  

A wave of nostalgia swept over me remembering my bittersweet experience in the wandering land I found myself. It was distasteful to the mind on getting to Benue state only to realize that my means of communicating with the lady, had been stolen. This shattered the dream of meeting with my small Juliet.

Seeing this, i and Joshua decided to lodge in Apa gate hotel. I could say this gave us a great opportunity not only to explore the scenery of the food basket of the nation, Benue but also get to know about the people of the place.

With the presence of Joshua, it wasn’t hard to explore the beautiful state of Benue, because he often visit the place, and knew every bend and curve of the roads and cities.

Some Things You Should Know About Benue State

During my first visit to Benue state, I got to know Benue State to be one of the North Central states in Nigeria that had around 4,253,641 people as of 2006. The state has four major tribes;  which are the: Idoma, Tiv, Igede, and Etulo. The state derives its name from the Benue River which is the second largest river in Nigeria after the river Niger and has a length of 1400 km. It is located at the North bank part of Markudi.

The people of the place are predominately farmers, cultivating sesame seed, yam, rice, cotton, shea butter, soya beans, cassava, etc. which has earned the state what is popularly known for in Nigeria as the ‘food basket of the nation’. This no doubt answered my question about the meaning of the beautiful basket sculpture of food, sandwiched in the centre of Wurukum Roundabout, which welcomed us to Markudi. Such a wonderful scenery.  

The people living by the riverside are mostly fishermen.

Okay, back to my first visit to Benue.

My Experience in Benue State

One place we visited was the Ange factory in Markudi, a few kilometres away from River Benue, an interesting and exciting place Joshua gallivanted me to. Trust me, it is an interesting place you won’t want to miss during your visit to Markudi, Benue state.

The visit to Ange fabric factory was a bit late, with what looked like many had closed for the day, we only met one person in the factory, making the fabric. With much satisfaction, the man gleefully showed us around the workshop and made our observation keen to us.

In the factory, there is about four major attire that is produced regularly, which are:

The attire enmesh in blue, black, and white colour is for the Igede people, the white and black attire is for the Tiv, the black and wine colour is for the Idoma’s, and another which represents all the tribes in Benue state is the attire with:  white, black, blue, green and red (color mix). He said most Benues usually like the attire in form of headgear accompanying it with a white shirt or blouse or had it placed across their shoulder.

On our way back to the hotel the same day on bikes, the most rampant form of Benue’s means of transportation, we caught glimpse of bush bars, which the bike man told us is a very profitable business because the people in the locality don’t joke with their palm wine, bush meat, and beers, which made the business so common and lucrative.

The Food Basket of the Nation…

As the food basket of the nation, we thought it would be peachy to tour the state market to see their rich agricultural produce. Therefore, we set out to the state’s main market which is the Wurukum market not too far from the Wurukum roundabout. It happens to be the largest market in Markurdi,  which houses different shops and kiosks where provisions and foodstuff are sold. If not for the reason of not having enough left with us to spend, we would surely have bought a great deal of food and fruit items, because they are so cheap and affordable.

In the busy market furthermore, are different activities were ongoing as at the time of visitation. When we were about to exit the market, Joshua drew my attention to a noise level predictor. That was the first time I was seeing something of such. It was said to be built for roadside traders at an open market area of the market.

Leaving the market, we were supposed to visit the airport but were told it was at the naval base and we wouldn’t be able to have access to it, because it was not functional and opened to the public. Hence, we resolved to visit the most popular Tito gate restaurant, which is the oldest and the most popular restaurant when it comes to fast food. While in my state, I have heard so much about the restaurant being the most popular in Benue.

The End of Our Journey

After spending much time on the street of Markudi, at around 5 pm noon, we retired to the hotel, to get prepared to leave Benue for my state the next day. Even though I was not able to actualize my main objective and aim of visiting the beautiful state of Benue, I was no doubt able to explore and visit new places and also get to know a few things about another culture and their ways of life.

For the adventure of travellers, there are chill spots, hotels, roadside restaurants, along the road to the rest of the drive. I honestly feel Benue has huge tourist potentials that are yet to be exploited.