Traditional rulers’ warning

WORRIED by the dire situation in the country, especially the widespread insecurity, traditional rulers from different parts of the country have been expressing concern, urging the government to address the situation. In Ekiti State where two traditional rulers were cut down in cold blood by terrorists, the traditional rulers threatened to invoke traditional methods against the outlaws. Chairman of the Ekiti State Traditional Council and the Olojudo of Ido Ekiti, Oba Ayorinde Ilori-Faboro, said it had become imperative to embrace all methods to find a solution to the security crisis in the state. On his part, speaking during an interview with newsmen  during the 20th anniversary of the British American Tobacco Nigeria, held in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, the Oluwo of Iwoland in Osun State, Oba AbdulRasheed Akanbi, Telu 1, proposed the death penalty for kidnappers.

In another intervention, the Sultan of Sokoto and chairman of the Northern Traditional Rulers Council, Alhaji Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, warned that Nigeria is sitting on gun power with  millions of young people jobless and unable to afford food. The Sultan spoke during the 6th executive committee meeting of the Northern Traditional Rulers Council held at the Arewa House, Kaduna, on Wednesday. He said: “I believe talking about insecurity and the rising level of poverty are two issues on which we cannot fold our arms and think everything is okay. I have said so many times and at so many forums that things are not okay in Nigeria, and of course, things are not okay in the North. What are the real issues bringing about poverty and rising cases of insecurity? I don’t think it is the issue of a new government. To me, this government is a continuation of the former government; it is the same party. So, what really is the problem? I think that is one of the reasons we are here to talk to ourselves.”

It is not fortuitous that from North to South, traditional rulers have been speaking on the dire security situation. The situation is terrible. There is no part of the country that is immune from attacks by terrorists, kidnappers and bandits. Nigerians travelling by road are routinely kidnapped and subjected to all forms of indignity, and escaping without permanent bodily injury is the exception rather than the rule. To make matters worse, the majority of Nigerians are finding it extremely difficult to feed at all, let alone eat three square meals a day. The question of diet is tenuous, and so balanced diet seems like an illegal mythology. If under the immediate past administration of President Muhammadu Buhari Nigeria officially became the global capital of poverty, what it is today with more Nigerians daily sucked into the poverty trap and with despondency written on their faces is hard to even contemplate, let alone describe. Hunger literally ravages the land and, to make matters worse, there is literally no electricity to combat the heat wave that has seized the country in recent weeks, presenting a picture of sheer misery. No one needs a soothsayer to tell that Nigerians are in dire straits: the purchasing power of Nigerians has been eroded and there is rising tension everywhere.

Perhaps it is chastening that traditional rulers are voicing their concerns about the growing poverty and hunger in the land, though it would have been untenable to not do this as the reality of the intensification of poverty and hunger bites harder. The reality is inescapable as it pervades the entire land with millions joining the poverty rank almost every day. The situation is directly traceable to inadequate production of food and virtually all other goods as a result of badly thought-out and implemented government policies. Precipitate actions and reactions of government at all levels around the provision of palliatives will not address the issue of production even as the palliatives themselves end up being mismanaged and vacuumed off through the corrupt context underlying most government processes.

We expect the government to first address the shortcomings in public processes to give a new lease of values to encourage a more productive outlook from the citizenry. And this has to demonstrably start with government officials at the highest level conveying a positive change of attitude and the responsibility to be committed to public good rather than continuing with the current trend of living large on collective resources while the masses suffer. Traditional rulers are themselves feeling the pinch of the current predicament and are only reflecting reality when they speak the truth about the unenviable situation to the government. It is certainly in the interest of the government to hearken to the cries of Nigerians and the traditional rulers by taking urgent actions, starting with pruning profligacy in government, to arrest the current decline and help to reverse the present intensification of poverty and suffering in the country.