 Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honorable Tadine Abbas on Saturday said the Green Chamber would work to ensure that traditional rulers have constitutional roles. Abbas said this has become necessary due to the critical roles traditional rulers play in society. The speaker who is representing Zaria federal constituency for the first time, first paid homage to the MES palace where he noted that important role of traditional rulers and institutions has to be called for recognition in the 1999 constitution. Joining us at this cost this, Ann Moise Tungiak-Villamy, he's a legal practitioner and also joining us is Elvis Asya, who's also a legal practitioner. Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us. Good evening. Thank you, Ravi. Thank you for being here. Great, since we're talking constitutional roles here where the speaker has brought up the fact that these constitutional, this roles of traditional rulers have to be constitutional one way or the other. Let me start with you, Tungi. This is not the first time that we're hearing. In fact, recently, I think last week, an Orba here in the Southwest had called for the National Assembly to make on traditional rulers some sort of, give them some constitutional powers. In fact, he did ask that a federal ministry of cheap-tensity affairs be created. But I'm asking, how does this one way or the other help the situation of my jurisdiction today? Is that what we need right now? Mary-Anne, I've been wondering as well that what constitutional role are they talking about? What is the effect of that constitutional role be on our economy and our development in this country? I've been rocking my head. I've been thinking about it. I don't know what I'm saying. I'm making difficult for them because they were just talking about assigning a constitutional role. They are not even specifically mentioning any particular role they want to play. I am confused. I don't know the role that will be assigned to them. Because for me, traditional rulers are already recognized under our law because most of it, if it's a law that has to do with the defense of affairs, they even have commissioners. So they have that role already assigned to me in that particular whatever. And when you say traditional ruler, they have their role traditionally given to them. They are custodians of the culture and tradition. So I don't see why, I don't know what recognition under the constitution will change. I don't know what maybe, I don't know what to take away from what they are doing now. I don't know what it will add to the circumstances that we have in this country today if they are recognized under the constitution. The only thing I know that once they are recognized under the constitution, what we need to know is to spend more money in that area and it will cost more money in that regard. As far as I'm concerned, traditional rulers, they are part of our system because most of the politicians, the governors, they recognize them. Even though under the law, most of the laws of the state, they are under the local governments. But the state, whenever they want to do anything, they assign a role to them. In other words, they recognize them. They will go to them for prostitution. They go to them for advice. These are all these roles that I'm concerned. I don't expect, I don't know the country I know they are talking about again. I want the country to do, to say, as a traditional ruler, these are your duties, these are your duties. There will be conflicts because they are 6 to 10, now we're no longer in the era of Apollonia, whereby the traditional are being used to play the role that the governors are playing today. When you assign a role to the government, is it going to be in the judiciary? Is it going to be in the executive? Is it going to be in the legislature? I don't know which of the roles they want to play, that there won't be any conflicts. As far as I'm concerned, they should just be recognized as a role as traditional rulers. In other words, because soldiers of culture, they are respected, they have been carried a lot in that matter. They are regarded as the number one stakeholder in every committee they have. And whenever the governor wants to do anything, they were the first point of their contacts to the governor would go to. So I don't understand the constitutional role they are talking about. I need more education in that. In the last five years, I've been thinking about it. I am not convinced that there is need for any special constitutional role assigned to traditional rulers. We are not long there in that colonial era. We are by the traditional rulers are the ones in the youth to govern the state or the community where they are. We now have a governor. We now have chancellor. We have commissioners. We have this and that, except we are going to clear some role. We are going to remove the local government council. We are going to remove the commissioner or whatever. They will not give that particular role to the obas. For me, I don't understand. I'm thinking and to see which role will be adequate for them as citizens. They have a role already as well. Okay, let me come to you Elvis. I will report the speaker directly. He says, I want to make a promise to you today. He's promising Zaire people that I remember three years ago when we held Zoro hearings on constitutional amendments, you made submissions regarding the need for traditional rulers to have constitutional roles. I would like to assure you, he says, that we now have the opportunity, with me as your son being the speaker, we will look at the proposal once again so that our traditional rulers will have recognition and constitutional roles. How expedient is this again? Many people look at traditional rulers and their roles as an advisory, purely advisory. And if we say that these people have to have constitutional roles, are we going to have to vote for our kings or our traditional rulers? Bear in mind that they've always been running battles with these traditional rulers. Sometimes they say you're not the one that should run, you're not from the stock of the king, et cetera, et cetera. How expedient an idea is this? Bear in mind the numbers of petitions that are on the floor of the National Assembly, including the Green Chamber. Well, thank you. I think the starting point is to recognize the fact that we are not doing well in terms of bringing governance to the people at the grassroots in this country today. Our local mass system has completely failed. What we have now is more like a glorified place for the governors of the states to put in their stuges to run. So right now there's no governance at the local level. And so there's a need for us to rethink the way our constitutional structure in terms of reaching people at the grassroots. And another thing that we also need to consider is the fact that when you look at the security situation in the country right now, in terms of all the crises that we have across the country, we need to begin to look at how best we can tap local knowledge and bring in local resources in helping government to address some of these issues. I think the question is not really whether or not they should be given some constitutional role. I think the question should be how should that role be defined? In what kind of role are we looking at? Just like you asked, is it a case of creating and letting positions for life? I think that is perhaps what is making a lot of people to oppose the possibility of amending a constitution to give some recognition to the traditional movement. But if we look at it from the point of view of formalizing what technically they are already doing in terms of assisting state government, the federal government to address issues of security and local government levels, just giving them some backing, some legal teeth to do that. I think that is probably needed at this point in time in the way our country is being run. We also need to look at the area of dispute resolution. The traditional institution has always been part of that, but we can formalize it. Today, we're talking about ADIR, alternative dispute resolution, for example. Why can't we formalize chief disinputers, land disputes, all of these disputes that can be resolved by a traditional institution? But Elvis, states do have this. For example, I've speak from my state, Christopher State governments does have a department of chief TZ affairs. And just as you spoke about this future resolution, they come in handy. I can't say the same for several other states. So what's other form of formalization of states and their governments understand and recognize them? What else are we looking for here? What is, they're already performing these roles, some of these roles, but there isn't any legal formality to it. For example, if you go to a traditional ruler to resolve disputes, it's not really possible in a way. So that's one thing that we need to look at. If you're looking at community policing, for example, you can't do that, that's really incorporating traditional institution. All of these security goals that the state governments are posting for security in the states. I mean, some of these funds should go into the traditional institutions in helping in assisting to address issues of security. So for me, I think we have to look at, yes, there are issues about partisanship. People would begin to say, you now have a traditional ruler who now have to be involved in governance and all of that. But the point is, we're not looking at politicizing the traditional institution. We're not looking at creating analytic position for them. We're saying that some of these things they are doing already, they can be empowered by law to, I mean, don't forget that it was just only in 1979 that this idea of not involving traditional rulers actually came into being before 1979. All of the other constitutions that we've had, even in 1960, 1990s, the constitution, they were assigned those traditional rulers. We had traditional council, both at the state level, at the state level, at the federal level, a lot of that. We can bring all of that back in an attempt to try to address issues of security, issues of local dispute resolution. We can't discount the contributions that they can make. And then somebody talked about funding that I mean, if you are realistic, we're already spending a lot of money on the traditional institution. The governors actually patronize them. So rather than just paying this money behind it, let's give them the role, let them do the work. And some of these funds are already getting through their hands, whether directly or indirectly, because the governors, even the presidents, they patronize them. They try to get them to, because they are very close to the people at the grassroots. So for me, to look at the failure of governors at the grassroots level today, we mind or we should rethink the way or manner we incorporate this traditional institution in governors in the country. Great, let me go back to you, Tindy. Let's pick up on where Elvis has stopped. Very interesting. Yes, if we do one way or the other incorporate these guys, because he's talked about enabling them to be part of the dispute resolution in terms of insecurity, et cetera, et cetera. I'll start somewhere before I go where I'm going to. And so it's beautiful that we want to bring them to do the jobs legally now, because they're already doing it, but then there has to be some form of legal recognition for them. Let's say for instance, in river states, half the time, and this is not allegedly, most of the cult-related activities were covered up by the said traditional rulers, royal fathers, et cetera, et cetera, making the job of policemen pretty difficult for them. They catch one, the traditional rule goes and sets bail or says, releasing is my boy. And then these people go around cutting people's heads off and the insecurity continues. That's on the one side. So if we are saying that we want to, these guys are supposed to help governments to do the job or make their job easier, how will government also make sure that these people are held responsible if the job that they're supposed to do is not done properly in terms of security people? So if the government is already strong, I mean, local government chairman, who are elected officials to hold those offices, close to say that they can also not strong on these traditional rulers, don't you? We mean, we do respect and it's not as if I'm saying the traditional rulers are not to be recognized or they're not important. What I'm saying is that I don't understand the kind of a constitutional recognition they are still looking for. They are already recognized by law, they are already recognized by constitution. The rulers' culture and the, the social culture and tradition are being recognized. In my own town, our other world is like a law. Whatever you say, nobody there changes or even they challenge it. And I'm not sure the people are challenging anybody in that regard. So if you are saying that if you assign a rule to them like ADR, they should be in force of law or need, we are duplicating the issue. Each adventure is set as its own ADR system. And even if you want to talk about ADR, alternative traditional solution, when you go and do ADR, the oba espalazzo, whatever it is done, and it's designed over by oba, you won't be free to even say whatever you want to say. You'll be afraid. Because we see them as a semi-god. In my own town, we respect our aim here. And we don't challenge his authority. We respect him, whatever he says, we believe in it. I wonder right or wrong. People can just, recently, if you notice that there was an issue, we are saying, versus you can say something about our oba. You can see the response from the people, even those who are not a friend of the oba. But for me, they have a role already. They have role as cultural art, cultural art. So if you are asking for constitutional backing, I don't understand what effects that will take. The only effect I can recognize that that will take is that maybe they will have a budget of their own that will be assigned to them or for their robin pay. But can we afford that right now? Because again, Nigeria is in a very tough place. That's what I'm saying, that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. So can we afford a budget for them? I won't support that. Because we already have, they are already operating in there. They are the number one stakeholder in every community that I know. In my own community, our oba is the number one stakeholder. If the government wants to do anything, in fact, and the oba says, I don't like this, don't let it happen. The government will not do. And so I don't understand the kind of, they talk about security. If the oba is saying, look, I'm afraid there's something that will happen here, I need this to be done here. They will align with it. They will go with it. So I don't, I'm talking about maybe in my own town, maybe in some other town, maybe they don't respect their, maybe their people don't respect the traditional rulers. Maybe they see them as something else. I don't know. In my own town, it's not the case. So I'm not exposed to other area whereby they have their traditional rulers there. For me, as far as I know about my traditional ruler, I don't know the constitutional rule that will be assigned to them again than the one that you're already doing. They are giving advice to those in government. Are they going to be made local or federal authority under which rule? Are they going to be assigned? Are they going to be made? And I'm not one of any oba cannot be made the chairman of any particular committee or any government, what you call commission. If you need a commission that you want oba to play a role, just put them there as a chairman. I'm aware most of the obas are the chairmen of the university council or whatever they call it. They are operating there regard. So I don't know the effect of that constitutional recognition that they are looking for. Those who have been saying it, they do not have the mission one constitutional rule. You want them to be playing or to play. They've not mentioned that our national law should be assigned to be recognized constitutionally. What they've not told us, the kind of constitutional recognition they want for them. So is it going to be in the area of executive duty or judiciary duty? I don't know. And like I said, they have been doing their ADR, what they've been setting dispute between the people within their area and they've been providing support in some instances. And for me, I don't know the, I'm lost to the kind of rule that will assign to them on that function. Finally, let me come to you elders in closing because we have just about two minutes to wrap this up. Talking about, like you have posited, giving them more legal backing to be able to do what they're already doing. Let's look at Tajidina Basin, of course, both the red and the green chambers and what they're prioritizing and what this says. I mean, we're not in any way trying to water down this. You obviously have argued really greatly on both sides as to for and against it. But in the other priorities, especially again, I emphasize where we are as a country, should this be topping the priority list of our national assembly? Well, I mean, you know, you are right. There are, you know, more serious challenges that we face right now, particularly economically, as we speak, Nigerians can barely, you know, barely survive it. The inflation rate is, you know, over the roof. But what we're here now is, you know, loans, for that loans being secured and we hear stories of 8,000 Naira being paid to people. And so you are right to, you know, think that the national assembly should at this point, you know, be focusing on more important things, you know, but the security challenges in the country are at the grassroot level. It's something also very fundamental. And I think that we cannot really take that away. If we are looking at, for example, the issue of community policing, we can actually achieve that without actually giving some responsibilities to national rulers. And, you know, so that we can hold them responsible in the event you have painted the picture of some of the things that are happening. This is happening because some of the national rulers have no obligation. They have no responsibility that is defined by law. They do whatever, you know, whatever pleases them. So the national assembly, yes, you are right. You know, there are so many issues facing national assembly. I think what is happening right now is largely political. Even from the precedence, there's an attempt to try to get general acceptance. You know, I mean, there's this doubts hanging over the electoral process that brought in this government. Let us be realistic. And I think this appeal of the national rulers is basically an attempt to oil that political situation. Well, well, I want to say thank you, gentlemen. Unfortunately, time is not on our side, but I want to say thank you. Tindia Abdulhamid, elders at the Bols, our legal practitioners, thank you for being part of the conversation. We appreciate it. Thank you for having me. All right. Well, that's the show tonight. We want to thank you all for participating, for watching. Don't forget you can also go and play catch-up on our previous episodes on Plus Quality. So all you need to do is go to Plus TV Africa on YouTube, subscribe, and follow all of our programs. I'm Mary-Anna Cohn. Thank you for watching. Have a good evening.