IT was probably more than a coincidence that President Bola Tinubu met a cross-section of Nigeria’s traditional rulers within the first ten days of his administration. The meeting was a reminder of the age-old call for constitutional roles for traditional rulers in Nigeria.

What we have now is a loose arrangement whereby the various states accommodate the royal fathers under the supreme thumbs of the state governors. They are largely restricted to maintaining the cultural heritage and acting as the traditional figureheads of their people. Some of them also play roles in settling disputes according to the traditional norms of their localities.

The repeated use of the words, “use us”, by the Ooni of Ife, Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, while addressing the President, was a euphemistic expression of the fact that our traditional rulers have the capacity to do more than they are currently allowed to do.

As the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Saad Abubakar, rightly observed, the traditional rulers in Nigeria are among the most educated interest groups with vast experiences in backgrounds such as the professions, bureaucracy, military, police, security, business, media, diplomacy and others. They can be asked to lend their wealth of experience to solve national problems.

But more importantly, their roles should be accommodated in the Constitution to make them more relevant than they are now. We believe that the traditional institution can play a useful role in securing the grass-roots and maintaining law and order.

We are always concerned about the large swathes of ungoverned spaces in the wildernesses where undesirable elements such as jihadist terrorists, bandits, armed killer herdsmen, unknown gunmen, kidnappers, ritualists, cultists and other criminals hide to do their evil work. They target defenceless law-abiding citizens.

Given the dwindling capacity of the law enforcement agencies to prevent or solves these crimes, we need an additional help at the grass-roots. The traditional institutions can come in handy in mobilising community vigilantes for more effective intelligence gathering, crime prevention and solution, working together with law enforcement agencies.

We took particular note of the portion of Tinubu’s inaugural address in which he promised change in “doctrine” and “architecture” in tackling insecurity. The new thinking should involve the mobilisation and deployment of our idle capacities, such as the traditional institution and youths to help state agencies in this onerous endeavour.

Before the coming of the colonial masters and even under colonialism when our population was much less than what we have today, traditional rulers were effectively in charge of security in their areas of jurisdiction. They have firm knowledge of all nooks and crannies. Every new face in their respective domains is known through their networks.

Let us put them to use, making sure we put in checks and balances to minimise impunity.

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