Former Minister of Transportation and Aviation, Chief Ebenezer Babatope and the acting National Vice Chairman (South-West) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Engr. Adedeji Doherty, have described the death of first governor of Plateau State, Chief Solomon Lar, as a great loss to Nigeria. Speaking to Saturday Mirror, in seperate telephone interviews, Babatope and Doherty described Solomon Lar, who was the pioneer PDP national chairman, as a principled and disciplined politician. Babatope said Solomon Lar was a great fighter for the people of the Middle-Belt.
"His death has chattered me a lot because I was very close to him. We served three months together in Kirikiri Prison and 12 months together in Jos Prison. I was there in Jos Prison, the day Solomon Lar was sentenced to 88 years imprisonment by the military tribunal headed by Gen. Ado Mukai (rtd) and I will never forget that day in my life because everybody was crying in the prison yard.
And he (Lar) try make sure that those of us who were younger than him are who are politician in prison survived the prison ordain. "He was a nice man, very visionary, very principled and very disciplined. He was a fighter for his people. He started his politics, fighting for the Middle Belt people from the area now called Plateau State and he never gave up on that struggle until he translated it into national unity struggle. He would be greatly remembered.
I am going to write a pamphlet about the life and times of Solomon Lar," he said. Doherty described the late former Plateau State governor as a great politician and an elder statesman who contributed immensely during his lifetime to national development.
The acting PDP National Vice Chairman also noted that the deceased as a first-class patriot and an accomplished administrator, who as pioneer chairman of the PDP, played a significant role in laying a solid foundation on which all his successors built on to make PDP the ruling party in Nigeria in the last 14 years.
