Traditional rulers across Taraba State have been warned to distance themselves from issues that have to do with land grabbing in their domains.
Rather than forcefully encroaching into lands that have issues, Governor Darius Ishaku told the traditional rulers to fashion measures that will lead to amicable settlement.
Ishaku, who made this known today at the closing ceremony of the five-day workshop organized for traditional rulers in the state by the Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs in collaboration with the state government, said that if the monarchs desist from dabbling into land issues, a lot of communal upheavals would be reduced.
Stressing that the major asserts of the ordinary man “is the land that belongs to him or her” the need for the monarchs to distance themselves away from confiscating such lands, he said, can no longer be overemphasized.
In a situation where land disputes reared its ugly head, Ishaku told the monarchs not to hesitate in resolving it between the parties concerned, stressing that “such dispute must immediately be handled and resolved by you with all sense of fairness and justice.”
Ishaku said the time has come for traditional leaders to use methods used by their predecessors from years past to tackle the influx of strangers into their communities. He added that this would curb hoodlum activities in their respective communities.
“In those days no stranger was allowed to enter any community without first of all visiting the palace of the traditional ruler for proper identification. And that has really helped in preventing bad people from taking advantage of such communities,” he said.
Wanting the monarchs to go back to their domains and implore the same measure in addressing the security challenges in their communities, if properly exercised, he is optimistic that the security challenges bedeviling the state would soon be a thing of the past.
More to his pleas to the monarchs, was on the need for them to be more religion friendly by tolerating and accommodating all persons domiciling in their domains irrespective of tribe, religion and political affiliations adding that, “you all must also be neutral in dispute resolutions.”
Some monarchs who spoke said the five-day exercise has equipped them with the needed knowledge to settle disputes in their communities.
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