IMPLEMENTATION OF JUSTICE AJAMA COMMISSION’S RECOMMENDATIONS ON CHIEFTAINCY MATTERS BY THE ONDO STATE GOVERNMENT.
A COMMENDABLE STEP TO GREATER PEACE AND GRASSROOT DEVELOPMENT.
A PRESS STATEMENT BY BARR FEMI EMMANUEL EMODAMORI.
To whom credit is due, credit should be given. I commend the Ondo State Executive Council under Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN for having the political will to implement the recommendations of Hon. Justice Ajama’s Commission of Enquiry on Chieftaincy Crises in the State.
The far reaching decisions taken in that regard at the State’s Executive Council held on 24th August, 2022 which, according to the communiqué issued at the end of the Council meeting, will soon be published in the State official gazette, would definitely lead to greater peace, harmony and grass-root development across the entire State.
Ondo State, like some States where chieftaincy and tradition are highly cherished, has had enormous painful, destructive but most often avoidable chieftaincy brouhaha.
Several persons have been murdered, numerous houses and communities have been razed down with fire, countless developmental projects have been frustrated in many communities, and Courts have been flooded with litigations over chieftaincy crises in the State.
Chieftaincies are linked with lands and territories, the combination of which symbolizes some sort of power which, if left unregulated or unchecked, is potentially dangerous. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Some of our Kabiyesis, with due respect, may not be immune to the lure of corruption and sense of impunity being increasingly fused with the traditional institutions.
It is a known fact that most of the chieftaincy crises are partly traceable to the failure of governments to summon the political will and courage to enforce the provisions of the Chieftaincy Laws of the State in regulating the traditional institutions.
As a Legal Practitioner who has been privileged to handle numerous litigations involving chieftaincy disputes across the State for almost fifteen years, I am convinced that the chieftaincy reforms being carried out by the State Government under Arakunrin Rotimi Akeredolu would also reduce the flood of chieftaincy litigations in our Courts to the barest minimum.
The Courts can then have more time to face other equally important cases.
The acceptance and applause of the reforms by the widest segment of the people of the State, especially at the grass-root, attests to its popularity. The State Government is on the right path on the chieftaincy reforms.
Femi Emmanuel Emodamori
(An Akure-based Legal Practitioner)
25th August, 2022.
