Rivers State House of Assembly and The Challenge of Rectifying the Balkanization OF Chieftaincy Stools in Rivers State.


By Monima Briggs.

Recently the Kano state House of Assembly in a historic resolution, overturned the ruling of the previous Assembly which removed the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and further divided the Kano Emirate into four. The Kano Assembly not only in the landmark legislation restored Sanusi to his throne but scrapped the four emirates, thereby restoring peace and stability to the land.

Also, recently a judgment of a Port Harcourt High court quashed attempts to balkanize the traditional stool of the Kula kingdom and in Okrika a High court ruled against the government recognition and certification of one of the newly created stooles in Okrika kingdom, however the ruling is on Appeal.

In the past years, the traditional ruling institution has suffered from the interference and manipulation of political office holders, who through gerrymandering of traditional institutions has tempered with the hierarchy and organogram of many kingdoms all in a bid to score cheap political gains, favour their loyalists or punish dissenters. This has not only thrown the institution into chaos and plagued the state with instability, but also stultified development, as in practically every chiefdom or kingdom, across the state, chieftaincy litigation is the order of the day. Scarce resources and valuable manhours are invested into court cases, while occasionally plaguing the communities with violence.

In all the known kingdoms in the state, varying degrees of chieftaincy problems, ranging from creation of new and non-existing chieftaincy stools, recognition of pretenders, and deliberate undermining of recognized and ancient stools, has all combined to create an atmosphere of uneasy tension and regular flaring up of violence.

In the Ekpeye kingdom, Ogoniland, Okrika Kingdom, Abua, Kalabariland, Akpor, Ikwerre, Etche and Omuma, the result of these deliberate manipulation has wreaked havoc with the order and ranking of traditional stools.

This is why the move by Kano State House of Assembly by its recent move has pointed a way out of the storm for us. The Rivers State House of Assembly must commence the process of auditing the all the Chieftaincy laws and activities relating to the chieftaincy institution undertaking by the past two administrations of the state as most of them were not done in the interest of the state or of the people but to serve narrow and jaundiced political ends.



The traditional ruling stools must be insulated from the manipulation of politicians, if the state must develop and grow. So many traditional stools are today denied recognition due to political reasons, while many are given recognition, even when it is obvious that it lacks merit.

The challenge before the Rivers State House of Assembly is to carry out an urgent review of the recognition and classification of chieftaincy stools in the past 12 years. Such a process will not only reveal the deliberate manipulation of the process of recognition and classification of stools, and offer the opportunity of righting the wrongs, and I pray that His Excellency, Sir Siminalayi Fubara, GSSRS, Executive Governor of Rivers State will consider the above observations in his forthcoming traditional rulers recognition and certification ceremony.

most of these stools were made by govt so there will be much govt interference. Many were created to reduce the power traditional stools had nt out of neccesity. The result is division and internal conflicts regarding who rules next and other factors.

There are no centralized monarchy in Rivers apart from ijaw city states. More reason we believe that Rivers is simply Igbos and Ijaws

COMRADES are here to learn

By the author's name, I doubt if he supports the authentic Speaker Martin Amaewhule and the members of the house. Keep calling on the governor who supports a fake speaker and his two clowns. You guys are just wasting your time.