Let’s rehabilitate traditional rulers

SIR: I criticise traditional rulers and Christo-Islamic clerics because if they are upright, there is a limit to how politicians will dribble the people.

How do we position our traditional rulers, so that they will not be subservient to the whims and caprices of the politicians? Whenever elections are approaching, a governor will start promoting traditional rulers to higher classes.

Naturally, the traditional rulers will promise to support the governor’s reelection. Even the Alaafin and the Oba of Lagos, were believed to be campaigning for a particular party.

Influential Christo-Islamic clerics are also courted by the politicians. Against Nigeria’s constitution, public funds are spent on religious festivals and pilgrimages.

What matters to the politicians now is that they settle traditional rulers and religious leaders, and not that they are pro-people. Hence politicians demolish people’s houses and shops with wanton abandon, and still get reelected, as in Osun, Oyo, Ogun, and Lagos states.

Demolition is not elaborate in Kwara State, but totalitarianism is rife, covering also commercial drivers’ unions, commercial motorcyclists’ unions, and any other force that can stand on the way of the governor’s reelection. It is an entrenched culture of bribery and corruption, not that of focused social development.

Can we give livable salaries and allowances to every traditional ruler and stop the promotion charade? Can we stop that dehumanization? Can we separate religion from politics and let religious people take care of their own festivals and pilgrimages, in line with Nigeria’s constitution?