An elder statesman, Mr Mataimaki Tom Maiyashi, has appealed to the Kaduna State government to reconsider the recent sack of district and village heads in the state.
Tom Maiyashi, who was a former Commissioner for Education in the state said this while interacting with newsmen in Kaduna. He said further that district and village heads played a major role in their various domain, particularly in the areas of maintaining security.
According to the elder statesman who is a grass roots politician in the state, the decision of the state government to relieve a substantial number of the district and village heads of their jobs at this time was certainly not a plus to the party in government.
“Traditional leaders that have lived with their people are very important because they help to solve their immediate problems and challenges, they interact with their people and because they live with them, they could tell the truth about any matter and amicably resolve the problem.
“If there are challenges within their domain,the traditional leaders know what to do because they get information of any stranger within their domain, and the fundamentals of humanity is identity and community identity is very important”.
He said, “if sacking them was due to lack of money to pay their salaries according to the state government the role the traditional leaders played to maintain law and order within their domain was far more than what they were paid as salaries.
“The state government will pay more if there are security challenges, so why paying more when you can pay less by keeping them, in fact, the most senior district or village head may not take home more than N50,000 as salary at the end of the month, some of them don’t live on their salaries.
“Government should rather do a capacity assessment of their roles to effectively carry out their jobs, and also organise a capacity building programmes for them because we must not become a people without identity.
He, therefore, called on the state government to consider the possible security implication of their sack and reconsider it’s decision.