Barrister Solomon Dalung’s Bio

Barr. Solomon Dalong

Barrister Solomon Dalong was born on the 26^th of September 1964 in the town of Sabon Gida within the then Resettlement Area which was a creation of the colonial masters to resettle and rehabilitate war veterans of World War II. This resettlement area is currently known as Langtang South Local Government Area.

 Dalong has not buried anybody as his parents are still alive and living in Sabon Gida. His father is a retired Director of Health of the Taraba State Civil Service. His great grandfather was a wealthy man of his time. The ancestor was a hunter who once left his village in Langtang to Ibi in the present day Taraba State for a hunting expedition. While in the wild, he came across white Europeans disembarking from their ship at the river bank of the Benue. He knew they were humans and performed the traditional rites of surrender by throwing his weapons and bowing down. The whites where quiet impressed and dressed him as a king by adorning him with beads and bangles with the Union Jack hung on his shoulder. He became an official mediator between the colonial masters and the natives leading to his influence and affluence. This historical event changed the course of history by giving his extended family a stake in the kingdom of Gazum District in Lantang South.

Dalong had his primary school education at LEA Primary School Sabon Gida from 1971 to 1977. He then proceeded to Government College Keffi, currently in Nassarawa State, for his secondary school education.

Against the tradition of joining the military that is common to Langtang people, Dalong chose to join the Nigerian Prisons Service in the early eighties. In 1991 while still in the Prisons Service, he enrolled to study Law at the Law Faculty of the University of Jos. The unpredictable academic calendar that characterized the Nigerian University atmosphere at that period saw him spending a whole nine years before bagging an LLB. He proceeded to the Nigerian Law School, Bwari, in Abuja, graduated in 2000 and was called to the Bar in 2001.

After passing out from Law School, he took up a job as Personal Assistant to Chief Solomon Lar when Lar was appointed as Adviser Emeritus to President Olusegun Obasanjo. This job lasted until 2003. In 2004, he took up an appointment with the Faculty of Law of the University of Jos as a lecturer. As a lecturer, he has had the opportunity of attending leadership trainings courtesy international human rights organizations. In 2005, he combined his job as a lecturer and study while pursuing a prost graduate degree in Law. His LLM program successfully ended in 2007 and was appointed the Chairman of Langtang South Local Government Area the same year. As Chairman of Langtang South, he also served as the Plateau State Chairman of the Association of Local Government Chairmen of Nigeria (ALGON). His tenure as Local Government Chairman ended in May 2008. He then returned to the University of Jos. He made an attempt at representing Langtang North and South at the National Assembly but lost.

Dalong joined the Prisons Service as a Prison Assistant and rose to the rank of Assistant Inspector of Prisons. Following his training as an attorney, he was moved to the legal department of prisons where he served as Legal Officer II in the prisons headquarters prior to retirement.

Dalong’s strong condemnation of the political regime is inherited, as political criticism runs in the family's blood up to his great grandfather. According to Dalong, “governance is a social responsibility and a democratic leader is equivalent to a human god, having the responsibility to determine the destiny of his followers. He did not acquire power by conquest, strength or might but either by charisma, bureaucracy or law. There is an instrument that confers that power on him and is expected to exercise it within the parameter of the enabling authority.” Abusing this power irritates him. This is not just an additional factor that shaped his critical political attitude but the  most dire of these factors. 

In Langtang south Dalong is referred to as “the man who brought colored roofing sheets.”  He is a Christian and is married to his wife whom he fondly refers to as First Lady and is a father to seven children.