Sultan names 3 past leaders who allegedly laid foundation for Nigeria's insecurity, gives reason
- The Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar III, has blamed the current security challenges on the relegation of the roles of traditional rulers
- The monarch pointed accusing fingers at Ironsi, Gowon and Obasanjo under whose regimes the traditional institution was relegated
- As part of the measures to address the security crisis, Sultan Abubakar urged the National Assembly to amend the constitution to recognise the roles of the traditional institution
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The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, has accused the regimes of Generals Aguiyi Ironsi, Yakubu Gowon and Olusegun Obasanjo of laying the foundation of Nigeria's current security challenges.
Daily Trust reports that the monarch who is the chairman of the National Council of Traditional Rulers of Nigeria said it was the former leaders who relegated the traditional institution to the background with no constitutional role.
Legit.ng gathers that the Sultan who was represented by the Etsu Nupe, Alhaji Yahaya Abubakar, said this in Abuja at a meeting with the Senate committee on constitution review.
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According to the monarch, it was Ironsi’s 1966 Unitary Government Decree, Gowon’s 1967 and Obasanjo’s 1976 Local Government Reforms Decrees that stripped traditional rulers of their powers and gave the same to the local government councils.
The sultan, represented by the Etsu Nupe, Alhaji Yahaya Abubakar, said the decrees resulted in insecurity and corruption currently facing the country.
He claimed that before the 1976 local government reforms, Nigeria was progressive, peaceful, and decent.
According to him, all the respective levels of governments need the support of traditional rulers to maintain security as they were always at hand to douse conflict that the police and other security agencies could not contain.
He lamented that traditional rulers, however, do not have the constitutional or other legal backings to perform such roles as they’re not even mentioned in the 1999 constitution.
The Sokoto monarch, therefore, called on the National Assembly to restore the constitutional powers of the traditional rulers via a constitutional amendment.
He said:
“Currently, traditional rulers do not have the constitutional or other legal backings to perform effectively as they’re not even mentioned in the 1999 constitution.
"This is a great departure from all earlier constitutions that recognized them, and even gave them some functions to perform."
The Sultan said the earlier constitutions gave the chairmen of the State Councils of Chiefs seats in the National Council of State alongside former presidents and chief justices.
In his reaction, the deputy Senate president and chairman of the constitution review committee, Ovie Omo-Agege, said the Sultan's requests were “not too much to ask”.
He urged monarch and other traditional rulers to lobby lawmakers at the national and state assemblies for their requests to sail through.
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Earlier, Legit.ng reported that the Sultan of Sokoto led a team of traditional rulers from the south and northern parts of Nigeria on a condolence visit to Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno state over recent Boko Haram attacks in the state.
Speaking in Maiduguri, Sultan who retired as Army General called on the Nigerian military to occupy Lake Chad region and the Sambisa forest to defeat the insurgents.
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Nurudeen Lawal is a Legit.ng journalist passionate about fact-checking/verification journalism. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Literature-in-English from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State. As Politics Editor, Nurudeen mostly writes on Nigeria’s political and socio-economic developments. He has attended different workshops, conferences and training on fact-checking and digital reporting, among others. Learn more about him on Twitter, @Nurudeen Lawal_
Source: Legit.ng
