By Emeka Mamah & Abdulwahab Abdulah
The Citizens' Popular Party, CPP, Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, Civil Liberties Organisation, CLO and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Yusuf Ali have rejected moves by the National Assembly to assign roles to traditional rulers in the country, saying the move was out sync with modern democratic society.
CPP National Chairman, Chief Maxi Okwu, expressed dismay over Senator Mark's statement saying that ''giving a role to a primordial institution like traditional rulers is of concern, and definitely not a priority area.''
Okwu also said that such proposed roles ''would appear out of sync with the dynamics of a modern democratic state.''
National Publicity Secretary of the ACF, Mr Anthony Sani and the Executive Secretary of the CLO, Mr Ibuchukwu Ezike made this known while reacting to a statement credited to the Senate President, Senator David Mark that the Senate planned to amend the 1999 Constitution to assign some roles to the royal fathers.
In his reaction,Yusuf Ali opposed the move saying, ''My candid opinion is that they should be kept out of anything that will give them any constitutional role.'' Speaking during a courtesy visit to Awujale of Ijebu land, Oba Sikiru Adetonan which preceded the commissioning of Senator Lekan Mustapha's hospitality industry at, Ijebu Ode, Ogun State, Senate President Mark had stressed that providing roles for traditional rulers would serve as a check to the insecurity challenges facing the nation.
''Our traditional rulers have inspired peace and unity in our nation. I believe that if they have constitutional roles, we might not have found ourselves in the present security challenges that we are facing today," Mark said.
Reacting to Mark's statement, Chief Okwu said, ''The power of the national assemble to alter the Constitution is not in doubt. The question of what role if any, should be ascribed to the traditional institutions was hotly debated in 1976-77 during the great national debates leading to the 1979 Constitution. ''It was settled then that in a modern democratic republic, such role if any, should be limited and left at the level of local advice.
''The peculiarities of a federal state, also defeats the argument of these latter day advocates for a role for the traditional institution.
''There is no uniformity in practice and content (of traditional institutions) nationwide.
''During the colonial era, the indirect-rule using traditional institutions scored some limited success in some parts of the country. In other areas it was an unmitigated failure, since it was essentially alien to the people's culture.
''We would therefore urge David mark and his co-travellers to pedal softly on this issue and let sleeping dogs lie.
''What Nigerians want now is to reduce big government and the financial burden it places on the national treasury.''
The ACF Spokesman, Mr Sani also wondered, ''How the Senate will do it without exposing the traditional institutions to the vagaries of partisan politics with dire consequences to the neutrality of the institution is not clear,'' even as the CLO Executive Secretary, Mr Ezike said that the proposal by Senator Mark amounted to chasing shadows by the legislature.
Ezike said that the problems in Nigeria today were not about roles for traditional rulers but how to provide good governance to the people by the three tiers of government.
The ACF's Spokesman said, ''When the British introduced the Indirect Rule using traditional rulers in some parts of this country, it must have been that they saw some use in the traditional rulers.
''But with time, traditional rulers have become sinecure personnel by way of lack of assigned roles by the constitution. Yet our elected leaders resort to them any time issues of mobilization of the people arise,or when there are communal conflicts.
''It is perhaps this fundamental thought that must have informed the senate to start thinking of specific roles for traditional rulers.''
On whether or not such roles would not increase cost of governance in the country, Sani further said, ''The high cost of government has more to do with managerial imperfections than anything else.
''Consider that American government does not have more than 25 cabinet members and France not more than 15. In Britain, the parliamentary system makes it possible for parliamentarians to be in the executive as well.
''But in Nigeria,the constitution provides for 36 ministers, yet the number of cabinet members and coterie of advisers and supportive staff is a crowd.
''At state level,it is worse because there are as many as over 1,000 of such appointments. More distressing; there are no clear delineation of task and responsibilities among the appointees to the extent that it is common place knowledge that no group of Nigerians is more cosseted by the hostile environment; is more protected from the consequences of its own actions and more compensated from its inadequacy than the group of people in government.
''If the Senate has any plans to change our ways of doing things by ensuring that every person, including the traditional rulers,work for their pay for common good, so be it.''
But in its reaction, the CLO said, ''It is unfortunate the kind of politicians we have in Nigeria and the disgusting roles they play in the polity. Rather than thinking about credible alternatives or solutions to the multifarious socio-ecnomic crises facing Nigeria and her people today, politicians, especially the law makers, who are supposed to make good laws and cautiously check the excesses of the Executives are busy chasing shadows and making promises to all kinds of people and groups for primordial and clannish reasons.
''Considering the fact that in most communities and kingdoms, the genuine and lawful processes of producing these traditional rulers have been grossly manipulated and violated by politicians to suit their own whims and caprices and not to serve the interest of the communities and their people, we wonder what roles they want to assign to the traditional rulers, most of who are imposed on the people.
''The answer is none. Those of us at the CLO think that the major roles the law makers should play today include but not limited to resolving the intractable national question by truly involving Nigerians in making the people's Constitution like other modern societies and ending corruption in high places, creating jobs for the people and restoring the battered image of Nigeria both locally and internationally among others.''
Also, reacting to Senator Mark's comments, Mr Yusuf Ali said, ''We are saying that traditional rulers should be excused from politics, so when you now give them constitutional role are we not inviting them to politics?.
''We should realise that successive governments since the colonial rule have been gradually whittling down their (traditional rulers) roles in governance. So, giving them fresh roles in the constitution makes it more statutory now; and this will mean that we are creating special office for them as well as creating additional expenditures for the government.
''As far as I am concerned, let them play their traditional roles as the father of all as their name imply, they are traditional rulers, let them continue with that.''
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