The Nigerian League of Veteran Journalists (NILVEJ) has expressed disappointment over the way some Governors are treating traditional rulers and denigrating hitherto revered customary institutions.
Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi state recently issued a query to the Ohinoyi of Ebiraland, a first class and revered traditional ruler for failing to be at the airport to receive the President Mohammadu Buhari when he visited the state recently.
But in a statement, the National President of NILVEJ, Chief Oliver Okpala described the development as a desecration of the traditional institution.
“He issued him a query. That is derogatory and an aberration” Okpala said. “We are calling the governors to order, to stop this rascality and insolence against our revered traditional institutions”
“How can a small boy who is lucky to emerge as Governor, who is below 50 years be issuing query to his traditional ruler who is heading an institution that was established long before the birth of his fore fathers? Is that not an insult? This amounts to desecration of our traditional institutions”
Okpala called on the National Assembly to urgently put laws in place that would insulate traditional rulers and institutions from such ignoble treatments by Governors and other political office holders.
“According to our traditions and culture if there is a high profile visitor coming into a state or within the jurisdiction of a revered traditional ruler, the visitor Is expected to pay a courtesy call on the traditional ruler in his palace. Can you imagine asking the Oba of Benin to go to the airport to go and wait to receive anybody? Can it be done?”
Referring to an earlier case when a traditional ruler was deposed in Kano state, Okpala said: “Imagine someone who did not rise to the position of a grade one clerk in the ministry becoming a Governor and sacking an Emir of Kano, presiding over a highly revered, centuries old institution. Some of them cannot even have traditional titles from their traditional rulers if things were to be in proper perspectives, now through the courts they have become Governors and now challenge the authority of the traditional rulers in their areas. The national assembly should make laws that would demand that traditional rulers are given their due respect. Give them the respect and authority they deserve as leaders of different communities and custodians of our traditions as well as our cultural heritage. This would require that the 1999 constitution is amended. Laws should be formulated that traditional rulers should not be made subservient to the government of the day.”