By Festus Adedayo
A nauseating bill is currently before the National Assembly. With the aim of establishing the National Council for Traditional Rulers, when passed into law, Nigeria would have formalized natural rulers’ roles and recognition. Sponsored by Simong Lalong, APC-Plateau South, the bill, which was first introduced on October 8, 2024, has passed its second reading in the Senate. In reifying why the bill must be passed, Lalong went into history to situate the fact that, before the 1914 amalgamation, traditional authorities wielded enormous influence in Nigerian governance. A ready example was how the Ooni of Ife, Oba Sir Titus Martins Adesoji Tadeniawo Aderemi (Atobatele 1) alias Adesoji Aderemi, KCMG, KBE, became Western Region’s Governor between 1960 and 1962. So also was the case of Oba Claudius Dosa Akran, a politician and Western Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, who also doubled as the traditional title holder of Aholu Jiwa II of Jegba in Badagry.
Lalong also beautifully situated the enormity of the powers held by traditional rulers of old when he said that, between 1910 and 1960, these natural rulers held significant authority, while being custodians of culture, tradition, values, and religion. Apart from these, they also played significant roles as custodians of their people’s values, managing communal conflicts, setting the tone for intra-communal commerce, industry and trade with other kingdoms.
However, beginning with the long years of military regimes which commenced with the General Aguiyi Ironsi’s unitary government in 1966, traditional rulers have been stripped of these powers. While the 1979 constitution even attempted a restoration of these roles to them, the 1999 constitution gave them no consideration at all.
Apart from the bill’s vexatious attempt to institutionalize the Ooni of Ife and Sultan of Sokoto as permanent co-chairmen, its most abhorrent part was the idea of its founding. As it stands today and even by the wording of its nomenclature, traditional rulers are local concerns of states and local governments. To nationalize their office is to follow the infamous Ironsi 1966 unitarization of a federal Nigeria. With Lalong’s Traditional Rulers Council Bill, the bubble of natural rulers’ a-political role in Nigerian government is about to burst. While states can be made to acoommodate the rulers in their governance, to federalize them and their relevance is to ensure that their appointment and removal will be guided by the federal government in power. It cannot but further erode their essences and estimation by government and their people. Already, traditional rulers’ subordination under local governments who have the power to depose and remunerate them is seen as a denigration of their essences. This will also lead to further politicization of the stools as it is currently being done in Kano State. In that state today, there are two emirs occupying one stool, with federal and state governments in a consuming tiff over their control, for political reasons.