‘How governors drag traditional rulers into politics’
Obviously, you’ve been a keen observer of the traditional institution and its relationship with the government and the constitution. How would you say it has fared? To understand the essence of the institution, you must go back to history. Before colonial rule, traditional rulers were the supreme political authorities in their kingdoms. When white rule […]
Obviously, you’ve been a keen observer of the traditional institution and its relationship with the government and the constitution. How would you say it has fared?
To understand the essence of the institution, you must go back to history. Before colonial rule, traditional rulers were the supreme political authorities in their kingdoms. When white rule came, they lost their authorities to the colonial agents of monarchs in Europe who set up indirect rule and, as has been observed by experts, this is a very realistic approach because they didn’t have the reach and resources to administer the areas they had captured. Now, traditional leadership has been the oldest [system] in Nigeria. It was there before colonial rule, survived colonial rule and survived military rule and today, we are in a democracy. And even now, we have not evolved a system that will rival it.
But their roles have been watered down by military rule and now by the constitution. Do you think they are still politically relevant?
Extremely relevant. I can assure you, no political scientist will assess modern statecraft in Nigeria, especially the democracy, I can assure you that there is no local government where the traditional ruler is not more politically relevant than the local government chairman. The local government chairman belongs to one party at the exclusion of others, even within his own party. Secondly, we have crisis of legitimacy in Nigerian democracy that allows traditional institutions to flourish. Nobody even cares about the political leaders at the local level. I don’t even know if you know your councillor who is supposed to represent you.
It’s interesting that you mentioned this crisis of legitimacy. We have seen instances where governors appoint traditional rulers contrary to the traditions of the people. Is this not bringing about crisis of legitimacy in the traditional institution?
Yes, at the personal level. The governor can appoint an individual as long as that individual belongs to the ruling family. It is very rare you see where a governor appoints someone who has no blood link to the throne. And secondly, once he gets into office, the structure of the traditional authority is very critical. How he goes about discharging his authority has been set up which is contrary to what you have in the political leadership where you have people winning elections they don’t deserve and the double jeopardy is that the structures of democracy in Nigeria are extremely fragile. And since colonial times, there hasn’t been an instance where the government has not been interested in who becomes the emir, especially in those important principalities. So, this is a given. Many traditional rulers have wrongly tried to compromise his authority and ended up messing up themselves. When a traditional ruler does something unbecoming, everybody knows it. But when a politician does same, people say well, what do you expect from a politician? So, the people are still culturally tied to this institution and scholars have argued that we must begin the search for traditional content to build our democracy. We can’t have the American prototype and expect it would solve our problems. This has been shown to be a critical factor in the success of democracy in every society.
But hasn’t the traditional institution compromised itself by conferring chieftaincy titles on people of questionable characters simply because they are wealthy or because they have come into some political position?
So many traditional rulers have admitted this as one of their mistakes but don’t forget, and I am not defending such acts, but it is the society itself that chooses that person as being successful. Let’s assume that someone is of questionable character, he has wealth, he has a large following because he has wealth and it becomes obvious to the community that they seem to like him or respect him, you discover that the emir is the last person to recognise him. By the time he does this, it has already become inconsequential whether he does it or not. And how do you know who is of questionable character? People make their money, flaunt it and get following whether political or otherwise. Many of these people have religious leaders who come around them. So, the emir at last has no choice but to recognise them. But don’t forget, most of these are honorary titles that don’t confer on them any authority because most structure of the traditional authority are already occupied by responsible people. But if someone is given a title like katika somewhere, for instance, it’s just a title given to him just as you have people with titles like GCON, MON and so on being arrested by the EFCC and so on.
But there have been allegations that most of these titles are being conferred in exchange for money.
It is not necessarily the case. There are instances where this has been done but it’s not usually the case. Most people are given these titles because they merit it. There are instances where some are given these titles where they don’t merit it. There are all manners of traditional rulers but you can’t use that to judge the entire institution. There are highly respected and honest people who have done so much for their communities. You may wish to know that the recognition of these personalities for title consideration comes from the grassroots. It is the people who will come to the palace of the traditional ruler and say this person has done this and that. Or he is elected a senator or appointed into a big government agency and the conferment comes as the icing on the cake. It is in very rare instances that people who have done nothing or have no name recognition have been conferred with titles except if it is hereditary.
There is also this issue of traditional rulers being partisan to the extent that we saw a backlash of this in the recent post election violence when traditional rulers and their palaces were attacked. What do you think of this?
Yes, I have written in my book that this will be the greatest Achilles’ heels for the traditional institution – their involvement in politics. I was the secretary of the culture reform committee of the national constitutional conference and the matter was thoroughly discussed and traditional rulers themselves who were members of that committee confirmed that it was a serious threat. But don’t forget, to solve this problem, we must look at it in all its ramifications. The emir is usually appointed by the governor who has political leanings. If the traditional ruler fails to identify with the partisan leanings of the governor, he stands the risk of being isolated or even being removed from office. So they are dragged into politics by politicians. I agree some of them are overtly partisan but a lot of it is done to please the governor because survival is the most critical thing for any office holder and emirs and chiefs are also concerned about their survival. You don’t expect them to dare the political authorities especially now that they have no constitutional linkages to administration whatsoever except local statutes you find here and there. And if it is a major concern to us as a country, then we must address it holistically. But to simply blame the emir is to blame the wrong person because he has no option.
Incidentally, the Sultan of Sokoto, HRH Sa’ad Abubakar, is celebrating five years on the throne. How would you assess his performance so far?
Well, I pray God extends the life of the Sultan and keep him in good health. We all know the circumstances in which he came into office following the demise of his brother in a plane crash. He came in at the time the caliphate needed a man of his character and authority. He is a successful diplomat, a professional soldier and a disciplined individual. You can see in the five years what he has done to the institution and the fact that there are talks today of providing a constitutional role [for traditional rulers] can be traced to his personal effort and diplomacy. He is a man who works behind the scene to get things done. If you read his speeches, he says it as it is. His role in the inter-religious committee and his efforts to reconcile the ethnic tension in Jos, his efforts to find a peaceful resolution to the Boko Haram crisis, all these are efforts that are worthy of a man of his character and training.
The Sultan understands that one of the greatest challenges of mordern statecraft is the need to link Nigeria’s democracy with the fundamentals of the core values of its traditional institutions.In that respect, the Sultan is an architect of legitimate democratic institutions.And secondly, as the Amirul Hajj, the Sultan has just organised and coordinated one of the most successful pilgrimages.
I think not only the Nigerian traditional institution, but the Nigerian society at large has benefited so much from his wisdom and authority and this is a reason why scholars have opened a new chapter in the intellectual discourse of the place of this institution in modern times. People like the sultan understand the vacuum, especially as it exists at the local government institution. To be honest, anybody who takes a day or two to observe the workings of the palace of the Sultan of Sokoto, as I have done, will see that place as a miniature Nigeria where people with all manners of complaints, especially people who can’t reach their political authorities, people who feel excluded by the partisan divides, communities like the Yorubas, the Igbos, the Egbiras who are resident in Sokoto, the role they play and the way and manner peace is maintained is all attributable to his commitment and administration of his people and I wish him a long reign as the Sultan of Sokoto.
The sultan is the spiritual head of all Muslims in Nigeria and several other West African countries. He came with a high reputation and brought in a lot of charisma into the sultanate. And recently we’ve seen his palace attacked during the post election violence. Where do you think he got it wrong?
Ah, to be honest with you, these attacks on traditional institutions may not be commensurate with [its] partisan roles. They are just a symbol. They symbolise authority, they symbolise high expectations and when politicians got it wrong, they [people] needed to find a punching bag and this was how in most cases these attacks occurred. I don’t think this is an indication of how partisan our traditional rulers have become. But I think it’s a frustration of the people who expected them to play a role for which they are not authorised. Any emir or king would prefer that elections are free and fair because if there is crisis in the community, it is his people who will be killed, the politicians can flee but once a crisis is domiciled in his [the traditional ruler’s] domain, it is he who will have to deal with it. That is why a lot of them go out to educate people and ask them to choose people who will best represent them. If the perception of a good candidate is not reflected in the elections result, people will get angry and what do they do, some of them will, out of ignorance, attack symbols which they have thought could intervene and bring about the desired election result. But don’t forget, the emirs are helpless. They have no role in the electoral process other than to use their authority to mobilise people, which they do willingly.
What is intriguing is that a few years ago such attacks on the Sultan and other traditional rulers were unthinkable and yet it has happened now. How do you think the Sultan can go about bringing the people under the same umbrella once more?
Like I told you, the Sultan, as much as I know, has been a determined and concerned leader and I beleive that already, measures must have been put in place to forestall future occurrence. He is a man of high intellectual capacity who believes in problem solving. These are not normal times, I must tell you. The period you are talking about are not periods of saturation of organisations, of different sects. Now you have all manners of sects and all of them are using religion as a launch pad for their agitations and a lot of these agitations are political, though in Islam the line between politics and religion is very thin.
Your forthcoming book, Kings and Democracy strongly advocates a constitutional role for traditional rulers. What is the basis of this assertion?
That is what we’ve been talking about, the legitimacy crisis in politics in modern Nigeria, the inability of modern democratic ideals to permeate the minds of Nigerians. Go and try this any day; go round the town with a town crier and say the chairman wants to see the people on a particular day and at the same time say the emir wants to see people at his palace on that day, come back and tell me where they go to willingly even though the emir has no authority to punish them for not coming and the chairman has fertilizer to distribute and all those things, yet they will go to the emir because he represents not only temporal but spiritual authority. Also, because modern statecraft has not really developed, it is full of lies, it is full of rancour, it is full of fighting, anytime there is a campaign lives must be lost, the same community, families breakup over politics because we don’t understand the intricacies of modern politics. Where the culture has not taken root, you are bound to have problems. Also, a lot of political leaders especially at local government levels are absentee leaders. How many times does a local government chairman stay in his area? There is one I know of who they say has never slept in his area. He always comes from somewhere far on the days he decides to come and leaves that same day because his family doesn’t live there. So in most cases when there is outbreak of diseases, when there is a natural disaster, it is to the emir’s palace they go because they can’t see the chairman or councillors.
When I was a commissioner in Kebbi, I get reports of disease outbreaks from the emirs before I get them from our disease surveillance officer in that community because in most cases they don’t stay there.
What we need to do is look at this area and make sure they are brought in line with the constitution. There is nothing in the presidential system of government that is contrary to the ideals of good governance that the traditional institution is noted for. How you bring them about is the purview of constitutional experts, so that we can have our democracy and benefit from the rudiments of our cultural assets. This is essentially the argument of my book.