13/07/2025
Why Plateau Has No Billionaire: A Hard Truth We Must Face
“What’s On My Mind Today?
1. There is no self-made billionaire indigene of Plateau.
2. There is no government-made billionaire indigene of Plateau.
Selah.”
I want to thank Dorcas Bentu for boldly raising this issue because it inspired this reflection. And I agree with her completely: Plateau has not produced a single billionaire through either private enterprise or government enablement.
But it hasn’t always been this way.
Once upon a time, there was a man, Late Joseph Dechi Gomwalk, a visionary leader and administrator of the old Benue-Plateau. He understood what it meant to empower people intentionally. While in power, JD Gomwalk personally raised and positioned over 100 sons and daughters of Benue-Plateau across different sectors like education, administration, business, and the civil service. At some point they came together and contributed towards salary payment of civil servants when the state subvention was delayed during the Shagari’s administration. Some of them rose to national prominence, and even though the subsequent generation may have failed to sustain the legacy, the point remains: someone did it, and proved it is possible.
Today, that spirit of lifting others is painfully absent.
I have personally witnessed and have heard direct testimonies of how Plateau elites deliberately refused to support rising stars. Not because these young talents lacked capacity, but because they didn't come from the right camp, family, or tribe. We talk of unity, but our actions say otherwise.
A people who destroy their own rising sons out of envy or political rivalry will never prosper.
Instead of building capacity and supporting our own to scale national and global heights, we pull each other down in quiet, calculated sabotage. It’s no surprise then, that other states boast of billionaires—self-made and government-backed while Plateau boasts of nothing other than being one of the poorest states in Nigeria, etc.
Let’s be honest: our brightest minds often leave Plateau not because they want to, but because they must. Because the atmosphere here is toxic for ambition and dangerous for greatness.
We have the brains. We have the land. We have the opportunities. But what we lack is a leadership class and elite society committed to building others beyond themselves.
It is sad, and yes, shameful, that Plateau, a state so blessed with potential cannot point to a single indigene who has crossed the billionaire mark with the strategic help of their people or their government.
And unless we break this cycle of envy, tribalism, and internal sabotage, our children will ask us hard questions in the future.
Let this be a call to conscience. A call to awaken the Plateau spirit that once raised giants under JD Gomwalk. A call to action for those of us in positions of power, influence, or access to use it for something greater than ourselves.
Because if Plateau does not rise for Plateau, no one else will.
Selah.
This is SDK with the Value-Based No Excuse Leadership Perspective.
Samuel DanAuta Kyarshik-sdk
Copied from a friends page on Facebook
