I saw Mr. Caleb Manasseh Mutfwang (60), the governor of Plateau State, a lawyer-banker and former Chairman of Mangu Local Government Area of the state, lamenting on television over herdsmen invasion of his state. The governor was almost in tears. 

It was the same with Mr. Hyacinth Iormem Alia (59) the governor of Benue State, who hails from Mbangur, Mbadede, Vandeikya Local Government Area of the state. Alia, the Nigerian Catholic Cleric and politician, is an ex-student at St. Augustine’s Major Seminary in Jos. Incidentally, the concern of the two governors has been lingering even before they were born. 

In 2018, I wrote on the crisis. I like to quote what I wrote then. “The Tiv/Fulani crisis in Benue/Plateau State has been on for too long. The older generation passed this crisis to the present one in an unresolved form, and it is getting worse with the years. The present generation must not pass the crisis down too, thereby saddling and punishing the incoming generation with an inherited mayhem. Much blood has been spilled, and particularly those of innocent folks. While many families have been displaced, many homes have equally been destroyed. And many still face a bleak future because of this crisis. It should and must end.”

In 1977, I had special relationship with two gentlemen involved in the crisis. They were Chief Solomon Daushep Lar (April 4, 1933 –  October 9, 2013) and Chief Joseph Sarwuan Tarka ( July 10, 1932 –  March 30, 1980), both of whom I got to know when I covered the Constituent Assembly in 1977. 

Chief Solomon Lar was elected as a councillor to the Langtang Natives Authority in January 1959. On December 12, 1959 he was elected to the Federal Parliament on the platform of the United Middle Belt Congress, UMBC. He was reelected in 1964, and from then until January 15, 1966, when General Yakubu Gowon took power in a coup, Lar was parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. He was also a Junior Minister in the Federal Ministry of Establishments. 

He became chairman of the board of directors of African Continental Bank, member of the Nigeria Council of Legal Education and a member of the Constituent Assembly (1977–1978). He was a member of the panel chaired by Justice Ayo Irikefe that recommended expanding from 12 to 19 states during the regime of General Murtala Mohammed. 

I used to call Chief Solomon Lar Chairman in 1977, because he was the chairman of the African Continental Bank- one of the lost glories of the present South-East zone, just like National Bank is to the present South- West. 

His house at Obafemi Awolowo Road Ikoyi was part of my rendezvous. That was at the earlier formation of the Nigerian Peoples Party, NPP. He was one of the sponsors of Club 19 that eventually gave birth to the NPP at that time.  

I asked him at that time, why he did not join the Makama Bida/Shehu Shagari’s group that eventually formed the NPN, he said it would be a taboo if he should do so. He narrated to me the circumstances that led to his father’s death. 

In the transition to the Nigerian Fourth Republic, Chief Solomon Lar became the first National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in 1998, holding this position until 2002 when he handed over to Chief Barnabas Gemade. In February 2004 he resigned as chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees, handing over to Chief Tony Anenih at a caucus in Abuja. 

Notwithstanding, he was a true middle belter. 

In November 1979, Governor Solomon Lar, then of Plateau State, told me in Jos that the day the Middle Belt crisis is resolved, Nigeria’s crisis would be resolved. He explained that unless you are a Middle Belter, one can never understand what “we go through in the hands of the Fulani man”.

I was in Obudu, Cross Rivers State recently, for the burial of Elizabeth Agbo Adede(1956-2025), the immediate junior sister of my friend, Senator Musa Adede. I was at the burial along with Colonel Lawan Gwadabe(rtd.), Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, Major Bashir Galma (rtd.), Bishop Jato, Alhaji Jani Ibrahim, John Owan and others. From Obudu, enroute Makurdi, I drove to Abuja, to take a flight back to Lagos. When I got to Makurdi that day, I had memories of my earlier life in that city. 

To be concluded 

•Teniola, a former director at the Presidency, wrote from Lagos.