Who Is A Traditional Ruler?
By a resolution of the Council of Obas and Chiefs of Oyo State meeting at Ibadan on Thursday, 9th August, 1984, I, His Imperial Majesty, Oba Olayiwola Adeyemi III, (J.P, C.F.R, LL.D) the Alaafin of Oyo, was mandated to present before this august assembly, a paper on the Role of Traditional Rulers in the Governance of Nigeria. Accordingly, I feel highly honoured and delighted to accomplish the wishes of the members of the Council in presenting the paper before you all today. You will pardon me for my inability to treat everything in details by time constraint. The purpose of this exercise, of course, is not to exhaust everything about traditional rulers in Nigeria, but most importantly create the awareness for scholars of history to conduct more researches in that direction. Perhaps, it may be germane even from the out set to pose the above question. The Oba of Benin, Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Erediauwa II, C. F. R., in a memorandum titled, The Traditional Ruler in the...