People · 1946
Image: Makir Dzakpe in the military as photo portrait.jpg — Aseer Makir, Public domain · source
In 1946, Makir Zakpe became the first holder of a throne that many Nigerians might assume was centuries old.
Today the Tor Tiv sits in his palace at Gboko as the father of the Tiv nation. Most people assume the throne is centuries old. It isn't. In September 1946, Makir Zakpe became the very first Tor Tiv. Before him, there was nobody.
That was not because the Tiv had no government. For generations, they ruled themselves through elders and councils. Family heads settled family matters. Bigger quarrels, over land, markets or fighting, went to wider councils of elders. Authority was spread out. No single man ruled all the Tiv.
Under colonial rule, that became a problem for the British. They governed Nigeria through chiefs, and the Tiv, one of the biggest peoples in the north, had no paramount chief to collect taxes and keep order. Many Tiv also wanted a ruler of their own, someone to speak for them as the emirs spoke for their people.
In 1944 Governor Arthur Richards agreed that the Tiv could choose one. Two years of argument followed. By September 1946 there were two candidates left: Makir Zakpe of Mbaduku District and Gondo Aluor.
Zakpe won. He was no palace prince. He had been a soldier and then a policeman. Now he was the first holder of a title nobody had held before. Some accounts say he was formally installed in 1947, though they don't agree on the day.
Zakpe ruled for ten years. He died in Gboko in October 1956. The man chosen to replace him was his old rival, Gondo Aluor.
The office has carried on ever since. In September 2025 it marked 79 years. Three generations of Tiv have now grown up with a Tor Tiv, long enough for most to forget it was ever new.
But it began with a former soldier from Mbaduku, stepping into a job that had no rules, no customs and no one before him to copy.
