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| Da Patrick Mandung, late Gwom Rwei Kuru |
Da Patrick Mandung Kwis was the Gwom Rwei of Kuru. Kuru is one from a cluster of communities that make up the eleven districts of Beromland. The Berom is one of the largest ethnic groups in Plateau State.
On Monday, 24th July, a young woman visited Dara Mandung, seeking financial help that concerns her tuition fee –the royal father was passionate about education. He requested her to return the next day. When she did, he kept his promise and gave away all he had that day. About an hour later, the royal father passed away.
The gesture of handing over all he had to a woman that wasn’t intimately related to him, other than the fact that she is also Berom and a subject of his domain, was an act of kindness for which he was famous in Beromland.
Before his death, Da Mandung was one of the longest-serving traditional rulers in the whole of Plateau State, having served for thirty-seven years. When he celebrated his thirty-fifth-year anniversary as a royal father, there were financial gifts from wealthy individuals. The traditional ruler shocked everyone by giving away all the donations to St. Dennis Catholic Church Kuru, where he was a member of the laity. The money was used to roof the church whose construction was on-going. As an act of giving-in-return, the church ensured it completed work on the cathedral in the three weeks before his funeral.
Da Mandung radiated the humility of a child, greeting everyone he met, young or old, tall or short, not minding his own lofty standing in Kuru and Beromland. As if that wasn’t enough, he formed the habit of taking part in night security patrols, until his subjects prevailed on him to withdraw, saying: it was for them and not for him to go out in the dark and eerie setting of nights for the sake of protecting the people.
To say the funeral of the Gwom Rwei was majestic was to say the least. On the penultimate day to his entombment, the corpse was taken round the towns that make up Kuru community, before it was left at his home for a night. This was in respect of his order that he should be given, at least, a day to enable him bid farewell to the people.
Mandung belong to everyone. There was the church but also traditionalists with Kuru overflowing with people like sand on the seashores. There were civil servants, serving and retired. There were royal colleagues from all corners of Beromland and beyond. There were politicians, business people, miners and just everyone.
Kuru is set in a picturesque enclosure of towering rocks that compare to anything else like Gulliver compared to Lilliputians. The palace where the royal father and his council sat is, in itself, set in a ring of some of some of the topographic prominence that is the face of Plateau State. Traditional Berom warriors, not leaving anything to chance, stood at the peak of the mountains, for a vantage view of the surrounding areas. Down below and beside the palace, the Gwom Rwei was buried in a mausoleum that exemplifies skill and craft that is deserving of a man of his regal standing.
Da Mandung’s successor will inherit a couple of challenges that include how to end a nasty culture of youths dropping out of school to pursue mining, how to end the culture of partying into late nights in an environment replete with endless episodes of horrific and tragic night killings, and how to end the reckless and regrettable sale of lands by subjects.
Dara Mandung was born into a royal family in Kuru on April 12th, 1943. He attended the Roman Catholic Mission –RCM– Primary School, Kuru, after which he went to St. John Vianney Seminary, Barking Ladi, hoping to become a priest, but –according to his son, Martin– his dad didn’t end up a priest. The tide of life reshuffled events so that his dad ended up with a mining company, despite having completed his course at the seminary. He later left to join the Nigerian Army, serving in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Kaduna. With time, he resigned from the Nigerian Army –where he worked in communication and intelligence– to join Shell Petroleum. In 1985, though, he bowed to the authority of the Kuru traditional institution, when a delegation paid him a visit, requesting him to become the District Head of Kuru.
He left behind nine children.