Plateau State Association UK (PSA UK )

Plateau State Association in the UK was formed around 1987 when we held our first meeting. These are the eight members who got together to form the association. Mr. Pancen Gowal Large, Mr Lohbut Yarlingturfa Rimdap, Mr. Kumbin Jatau Dangata, Mr. Solomon Fom, Mr. Eric Fom, Dr. Yikyes Bala, Mr Dinok Lazarus Karshak and Mr Titus A. Yiggon.

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As time went on, Nasarawa state was created out of Plateau State and one of the eight, Mr Titus Yiggon whose local government went to Nassarawa State left to join his colleagues. They formed the Nassarawa State Association.

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At the time, we felt it was a necessity to form the association was because there we were, most of us from student affiliated relationships, meeting at the scholarship office in Fleet Street. As time went by, we acknowledged that as we are in a foreign country living in a different culture, we didn't have the support of looking out for each other that we would have back home. We thought it was proper to get ourselves together, so that we can assist one another in time of need.

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We agreed for the association to be non- political and more of a social group to get together and help ourselves out in time of need. At the time, we held monthly or bi-monthly meetings mostly at weekends to discuss issues on ground and how we could resolve them. We were a bit selfish at that time, because it was only eight of us, all men without our wives. Later on, our wives were included, and they joined us and immediately became very active.

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Generally, we used the association to help ourselves. For example, if a person died here, we could put money together from our pockets and sponsor the corpse back home for burial. We have done that about twice now. Over time we got to know more people form Plateau State, coming to the country for different reasons and they joined us, so we continued to grow in number.

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When the association grew so large, we decided to help our people back home when problems happened.

For example, when there was a fire incident that killed some schoolgirls at Gindiri, we made a cash donation to assist. When there was crisis around the Jos area, in northern Plateau, and later in Southern Plateau we made significant cash and material donations. We also donated hospital equipment to the Plateau State Hospital through the Association.

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When we realized we were involved in a lot of charity activities, we decided to open a charity separate from the association and I am the first and still the chairman of the charity.

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Now most of us have grown old and our children have grown older. We are very pleased and feel good that we have handed over to our children who are doing very well now. We have now moved to the background, giving them support to do even more than what we have done. Our duty and responsibility now, is to ask them to carry on this good thing we have started a little over 30 years ago. We will continue to give them all our support as much as we can so that they carry on, for the association to live on.

 

As I mentioned before, we have been supporting our State so that they can also carry on helping our people. For us, we must be good ambassadors of our State Government and Nigeria at large.

 

My wish for the future is to keep on promoting our cultural heritage and support our State by giving suggestions on how to help our people grow in education, health, and economically and acting as ambassadors.

 

I would like our children to carry on with the good work and I would like the State government to carry on recognizing the association, as they have done. I would also like for the Governor, who is the CEO of the State and also the Grand Patron of the association to carry on with the good cooperation between us so that we can foster development in the State. This will ensure that our people will carry on benefiting from the democratic proceeds in Plateau State.

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Mr Lohbut Yarlingturfa Rimdap

(For and on behalf of Founding Members)