Tajudeen Abbas, speaker of the house of representatives, says the nation’s security will improve if traditional rulers are given constitutional roles. 

The bill seeking to give traditional rulers constitutional roles did not scale through during the last assembly.

Speaking at an event to mark the one year anniversary of the 10th house, Abbas said through the ongoing constitutional amendment process, parliament will grant constitutionally recognised roles to traditional institutions.

“The 10th house, under my leadership, will do its best to give recognition to the traditional rulers during our constitution amendment exercise,” Abbas said.

“Many amendments were made in the past to grant constitutional recognition to traditional rulers, but they never saw the light of day.

“Because most of us in the house honestly believe that traditional institutions are the backbones of our society. We believe that the welfare of our people will be more enhanced with a legal role for the traditional institutions.”

Abbas said he constituted two special standing committees when he assumed office, to drive the process of actualising constitutional roles for traditional institutions, and achieving autonomy for local governments.

“We also believe the security of our country will be more enhanced if the traditional institutions are given better roles. That is the reason from the onset, we decided to create committees — two different ones — actually,” he added.

“One of them is the committee on traditional institutions to drive the process of giving legal recognition to the traditional institutions in this coming constitutional amendment.

“The second one is the committee on states and local governments.

“If we must make headway with the ongoing constitution amendment, state governments, state houses of assembly, local government councils and their councillors must be considered.

“That is the reason we decided that another committee dealing with issues of states and local governments should come on board.

“These two committees, we believe, will drive the process of reaching out to critical stakeholders in the states to ensure that the goal of local government autonomy is realised.”

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