For the next 23 years or so, the traditional rulers’ constitutional situation remained precarious but somewhat stable. At least the 1979 Constitution remembered to mention a Council of Chiefs at the state level as well as chairmen of the state Council of Chiefs as members of the Council of State, a fairly exalted kind of recognition. Even after the 1979 Constitution’s violent overthrow, the ensuing military regimes largely maintained its spirit in so far as the chiefs were concerned. But in 1999 came the complete constitutional rout; a Constitution was promulgated into law that did not mention the chiefs, even in passing, anywhere in its 160 pages.

The strange thing though was this: four decades of full constitutional retreat by the royal fathers did not translate into a pell-mell political and social retreat by the institution. No state took a cue from the constitution and abolished the chiefs; instead, communities all over the country were demanding more and more chiefs of higher and higher grades, and the governments were generally granting the requests. Traditional rulers in their flowing robes and flashy limousines remained very visible all over the country, and they silently exercised a lot of extra-constitutional power. Everybody was bowing and kowtowing to them, including those people whose offices received very prominent constitutional mention and who had huge public treasuries and numerous agencies of state coercion at their disposal.

What was more, too many people from all segments of the modern elite wanted to become traditional rulers, completely displacing the wise but unlettered rural men who were once synonymous with chieftaincy. To mention a few examples to make this point, the Oba of Lagos was a former Police AIG; Oba Oladele Olashere once headed a bank; the Oba of Benin was once a Federal Permanent Secretary; the Asagba of Asaba is a world-renown academic; the Emir of Zuru once commanded the Army’s One Mechanised Infantry Division; his next-door neighbour, the Emir of Yauri, was Vice Chancellor of a Federal university; the Emir of Illorin was an Appeals Court judge; the Emir of Gwandu was a two-time military governor; the Emir of Suleja was a twice-elected civilian governor; his neighbour the Etsu Nupe threw off an Army General’s uniform to take up the throne; the Emir of Nasarawa also abandoned headship of a large Federal agency to take up the throne; the Emirs of Daura and Katagum were both Northern regional ministers under the Sardauna, while the Emir of Kano abandoned an ambassadorial posting to take up the old throne. There must be something to a traditional ruler’s throne for it to attract all these people.

That’s not the only mystery. Right now, too many people, again from all sections of the modern elite, fall over themselves to be conferred with a chieftaincy title by a traditional ruler, even though it entails sitting cross-legged in the emir’s sparsely furnished courtyards and stooping very low to greet the chief. Chieftaincy title holders include some of the most powerful men in the land. The President is Balogun of Owu; the Vice President is Turakin Adamawa; the Speaker of the House of Representatives is the Dallatun Katsina. Among the governors, in the Northern States alone, there is a Yeriman Bakura, a Garkuwan Sokoto, a Mutawallen Katsina, a Walin Bauchi, an Ardon Yobe, a Sardaunan Aliero, a Sarkin Yakin Gombe and a Sarkin Yakin Keffi, among others.

You see, in the whole complex tide of military conquest or reconquest, soldiers speak of a small territorial gain from which to launch further operations as a beach-head. If ever traditional rulers in this country succeed in rolling back 40 years of constitutional reverses, they will speak of a small event that took place in Nasarawa State last week as the beach-head, in the same way that Normandy was the beach-head for the Anglo-American reconquest of Europe from the German Nazis. In that case, Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu may well go down in royal history as the 5-star General Dwight David Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force [SCAEF] of royal reconquest, and would receive honourable mention in the Kano Chronicle, the Abuja Chronicle and all other royal chronicles and king-lists.

The short ceremony that took place in Lafia on Wednesday last week was the military equivalent of an artillery bombardment to soften up a target, preparatory to a full-scale operation. The Nasarwa State Local Government [Amendment] Law 2005, which Governor Adamu signed into law on that day, had had a long gestation period. Adamu has been a friend of the royal thrones more or less from his first day in power. Since 1999, he has created many new districts and chiefdoms and has upgraded many of the old ones.

The Nasarawa State government took over paying the chiefs’ salaries from the local governments. All the Nasarawa chiefs got a pay hike, and all the graded ones got official cars. At present, the state and the local governments in Nasarawa are jointly refurbishing the palaces of royal fathers all over the state. On top of it came this law, which was first suggested by a committee that Adamu established in early 2002, led by the Emir of Keffi Alhaji Muhammadu Chindo Yamusa. There is clearly very little constitutional maneuvering room at present for enhancing the power of anyone, given that the 1999 Constitution went to great lengths to spell out who exercises what executive, legislative and judicial authority. Without infringing upon it, the new Nasarawa law requires state and local governments to seek traditional councils’ advice with respect to a range of issues, including customary and cultural matters, chieftaincy, internal security, conflict resolution, community development programmes, education, agriculture and natural resources, tradition and customs, religious matters, sanitation and all other matters of general public interest. What’s the idea here? At the impressive signing ceremony, which was attended by traditional rulers from many parts of the country, Governor Adamu said many obvious truths, made several thought-provoking statements, and said a few controversial things as well.

He said, for example, that the institution of traditional rulers has the survival capacity of a beetle. This must be true, because in some parts of Nigeria, the chiefs have been around in various forms for close to 1,000 years and have survived population explosion, social transformation, untold migrations and demographic changes, trans-Saharan trade and trans-Atlantic trade, much internal strife and wars, the Danfodio revolution, European conquest and colonization, post-independence upheavals, military rule and the machinations of politicians. Even the Rhinoceros beetle would have had difficulty surviving all that! Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu also said the traditional rulers had a “remarkable set up which modern forms of administration only mimic. The paramount ruler, known either as emir or chief, had lesser chiefs such as ward, village and district heads who served under him as grassroots administrators, very much like the state and local government set up today. We had traditional office holders that were the equivalent of prime ministers, ministers, judges and bureaucrats. Each kingdom had an impressive military set up complete with commanders, staff officers and foot soldiers. The chiefs and emirs had a well-defined system of selection and succession faithfully implemented by the kingmakers who also acted as checks on the possible excesses of the emir or chief”. Most of this statement is true, even though separation of powers was a problematic concept for the royal fathers in 1,000 years of evolution.

More controversially, Adamu said, “Everyone [that is, emirs and chiefs] knew the limits of their powers and the responsibility that they owed to the kingdom and the people. Our traditional rulers were not maximum rulers. They were democrats who ruled their people in accordance with elaborate traditional constitutions which defined penalties for those who breached the laws or the constitutions, unwritten though they were. Indeed, if a traditional ruler exceeded his powers or was tyrannical, he was deposed in accordance with the traditional constitution.” This statement reminds me of the story we heard in secondary school history class about the 17th century Bashorun Gaha of Oyo, who put the Alaafin to death for constitutional violation. That was an unusual example, for too many traditional rulers in the pre-colonial, colonial and even post-colonial era did tend to excess.

I have personally known for some time that Governor Adamu has shopped around for many years to find some of the magic formula of the late Premier Sir Ahmadu Bello’s smashing political and governmental effectiveness. Adamu clearly believes that the Native Authorities, under the emirs and chiefs, were responsible for the effective mobilization, policing, social discipline and resource utilization of the First Republic leadership, compared to the sloppiness and sleaze of the modern day. Adamu spoke last week about the traditional rulers’ very effective mobilization in support of the Federal Government during the Civil War, and also the quick resort to them by modern-day political leaders in any event of civil strife. In particular, he said the emirs and chiefs greatly assisted when southern Nasarawa State was engulfed in communal strife in 2001.

I suspect most Nigerians will agree with him that traditional rulers, in their hey-days, were much more effective in law and order matters than are the whole sprawling security agencies of the modern day. Many Nigerians also seem to think that things will simply get better if security is once more returned to the chiefs. Many old timers remember the testimony at the judicial commission of inquiry that followed the horrific Maitatsine riots in Kano in December 1980. It was said, for instance, that the political leaders and security agencies of those days failed to recognize the threat posed by Alhaji Muhammadu Marwa, alias Maitatsine, and his fanatical followers even though the old Kano Native Authority under the then Emir Muhammadu Sanusi detected the threat as early as 1954 and banished Maitatsine from Kano. Many Nigerians may not know this, but all these constitutional changes of the last 40 years have taken a heavy toll on traditional rulers’ once vaunted contact with and knowledge of happenings at the grassroots, not to mention their ability to control events there. And why not? They are not magicians; with no Yan Doka, no Alkalai, no Yari, no Baitul Mali and no well-fed and well-motivated dogarai, how on Earth are they to know who entered the town, stayed where, talked to whom and did what? I am not theorizing here. I recall my own experience at Funtua in April 1993, when Tawey Zakka and I went there to report on a Maitatsine uprising for the then Citizen magazine. We interviewed several officials, including the Local Government Chairman and the Police DPO, all of whom said they were caught totally unawares when a small brawl in the market made the religious sect to unleash such mayhem on the whole city. We then headed for the palace of the Sarkin Maska [district head of Funtua] Alhaji Idris Sambo, now deceased. On the way, I predicted to Tawey that contrary to what the other officials said, the district head was likely to tell us that he detected all the signs of trouble and most probably had repeatedly warned the authorities. But I was dead wrong. The Sarkin Maska, a quiet and pleasant man, told us he was very surprised that the religious sect unleashed such mayhem. He said even though the sect members were known to be queer people, who largely kept to themselves and maintained their own separate mosques, he did not in the least suspect that they were stocking up weapons or that they bore such deep animosity against the larger community as to unleash a war. Now, now, I could see why the DPO and the LG boss knew nothing.

Governor Adamu spoke about traditional rulers being regarded these days as a Fire Brigade, to be called upon every now and then to pull the politicians’ chestnuts out of raging communal fires. But any good Fire Brigade must do more than rush in only when there is a fire; in peace times, Brigadesmen must go round, inspect buildings and advise on fire-prevention measures. Adamu is therefore very correct that if the emirs and chiefs are not consulted to advise governments and what to do and what not to do, they cannot be very effective when the communal fires start.

Security apart, he raised another major point, about custodianship of social values. Adamu said, “Our traditional respect for constituted authority is steadily eroded and our cherished social value system and social cohesion have turned upside down because we have sidelined our traditional institution. Our traditional institution once effectively policed our culture and tradition. It instilled in us the virtues of honesty and hard work. The community ostracized those who offered no convincing proof of the sources of their wealth because our social value system did not tolerate anti-social behaviour and 419. Today, such people are feted as respectable men and women in the society, thus undermining all efforts to destroy the cankerworm of corruption and the get-rich-quick syndrome”.

This assertion of the Sarkin Yaki is very controversial. Many people will say that traditional rulers are in the forefront of this horrible development by conferring chieftaincy titles on all kinds of people who have wrought havoc on the social value system.