JUST IN: Ooni seeks constitutional roles for traditional rulers to fight insecurity

The Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi has asked that traditional rulers be assigned constitutional roles to fight insecurity in Nigeria.

Ooni made this call at the 2023 exercise Haski Hiyu lecture series, themed: “Combating Internal Security Challenges through Effective Utilisation of Traditional Institution,” organised by the Armed Forces command and staff college, Jaji Kaduna state.

The monarch noted that failure to do so, Nigeria won’t effectively tackle emerging and contemporary security challenges confronting the country.

Ooni stressed that the failure of the security agencies and the government to assign specific constitutional roles to traditional rulers was largely responsible for the lingering insecurity in the country.

He noted that the traditional institution has a vital role to play in the fight against insurgency, banditry and other related crimes in the society due to their closeness to the people, and therefore expresses the need to enshrine roles of traditional rulers in the constitution.

The monarch urged the government to work closely with the traditional institution to tackle insecurity.