Senate pledges constitutional roles for traditional rulers

The Senate says it will consider assigning Constitutional roles to traditional rulers in the next Constitution amendment to give them a sense of belonging.

Senate President Godswill Akpabio said this when he received in audience, royal fathers from all the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Abuja on Monday.

Akpabio said that the royal fathers had key roles to play in governance especially in the area of ensuring security of lives and property.

“Your request for constitutional role in governance is not strange to us and in particular to me based on my background.

“My late grandfather was a traditional ruler and in fact, one of the warrant officers used by the colonial masters for effective implementation of indirect rule.

“During the period, traditional rulers effectively tackled issues of safety and security in their various domains.

“It is my belief and the entire Senate leadership here that if traditional rulers are constitutionally engaged in governance at the grassroots, the myriad of security challenges facing the country would be a thing of the past,” he said.

Earlier speaking, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, represented by Alhaji Yahaya Abubakar, the Etsu of Nupe, said the traditional rulers had been playing crucial roles toward maintaining the unity of the country.

Abubakar said however, that the 1999 Constitution failed to assign specific roles to the traditional rulers, in spite of the crucial roles they played in stabilising the society.

He said that although the traditional rulers made several efforts to rectify the problem, the situation had remained the same.

“The most recent of such efforts was the one made during the 9th National Assembly which didn’t scale through as a result of failure to get the required votes in the Senate in spite of its success in the House of Representatives,” he said.