There has been a pardon. But, there is no end in sight for the recent crisis involving traditional institutions in Anambra. Two other traditional rulers quickly followed that of Neni to suspension.
If a ritual that has become a source of income and influence for traditional rulers has suddenly become too risky, it has something to do with 2025.
Anambra is a unique political experiment. The Anambra voter is sophisticated and defiant. The Anambra political terrain is full of landmines and banana peels.
Veteran politicians and age-long political dynasties have known sudden defeats in a state that has consistently mocked the Nigerian existing state of affairs.
Charles Soludo leads the current government. He has two full years before he tests his popularity again at the polls. He has been in power for just two years. But he, too, has heard the murmurs of discontent usually so fatal in Anambra State.
His below-par performance and loquacity have been known to sink more established politicians in the state.
Next year, he may have Ifeanyi Ubah to contend with. The senator representing Anambra South in the senate has the guile, pockets, and people to knock Soludo off his perch.
Soludo knows this just as well as he knows the unpredictability of those who would determine his fate at the polls when the date is due.
It is why the state governor is railing against the chieftaincy title conferred on Ubah in Neni.
2025 is also the reason the Anambra Traditional Rulers Council in the State has been dissolved.
Soludo says the Council had to be dissolved because it was not properly constituted.
It is curious that it took the conferment of a chieftaincy title, a string of suspensions, and criticism from the Council for the state government to discover that it was not properly constituted.
It Is even more curious that the government now considers prominent Anambra sons as people of ‘questionable character’.
Recently, Nigeria has unraveled at breakneck speed. This decadence has caught many aspects of the country cold. Including traditional institutions. Nigeria’s crisis has disoriented even those who have always played such key roles in stabilizing the country.
Infiltration and interference have also been such powerful disruptors. The traditional institution has been hard hit. Those unfit to be even courtiers in any palace have somehow found their way to thrones, supported of course by mischievous government officials.
Royal appointments have known no little government interference. This has denigrated the traditional institution. But Soludo’s insecurity is worrisome. The conferment of chieftaincy titles on his potential rivals should not worry him so much if he is so sure he is the solution to his people’s problems.
Since he fancies himself the solution to Anambra’s myriad problems, he should not be too bothered by what others are doing.
He should not be having sleepless nights because of the activities of other politicians. Especially when they have tried and failed to be governor before. But Soludo seems disconnected in a way that is so disappointing for many people who have invested hope in his administration.
He won his election to much fanfare in November 2021. His March-2022 swearing was dubbed a new dawn for the state. However, that dawn has since been replaced by dusk, the light going off as quickly as it came on. Controversy after controversy has greeted his every move.
In going out of his way to court even more controversy, he has lost credibility. Traditional Rulers in Anambra State should be kept out of politics. Their appointment and work should be insulated from noxious politics.
Soludo may need to check the excesses of traditional rulers some of whom have forgotten what they represent. But he should also remember that the traditional institution in Nigeria is where it is today because of interference. State governors have been known to appoint their cronies to exalted royal seats.
They have been known to politicize traditional institutions and turn their custodians into sycophants. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo came under fire last year for humiliating traditional rulers at an occasion in Ondo State.
Yahaya Bello who was governor of Kogi State until days ago, was known for his vendetta against traditional rulers in the state.
It amounts to playing with fire to toy with traditional institutions. Soludo should know that.
The custodians of age-long traditions should never be dragged into the infantile tussles of those whose tantrums are as brief as the transience of their power is swift. Disaster looms if key pillars of the Nigerian society continue to be pulled down one after the other.
Ike Willie-Nwobu,
Ikewilly9@gmail.com
