Natural Law as Bedrock of Good Governance: Reflections on Alagbariya, Asimini and Halliday-Awusa as Selfless Monarchs towards Good Traditional Governance and Sustainable Community Development in Oil-rich Bonny Kingdom

Abstract

Oil-rich Ancient Grand Bonny Kingdom, founded before or about 1,000AD, was the economic and political centre of the Ancient Niger Delta region and a significant symbol of African civilisation, before the creation of Opobo Kingdom out of it (in 1870) and the eventual evolution of modern Nigeria (in 1914). The people and houses of this oil-rich Kingdom of the Nigerian Delta region invest more in traditional rulership, based on house system of governance. The people rely more on their traditional rulers to foster their livelihoods and cater for their wellbeing and the overall good and prosperity of the Kingdom. Hence, there is a need for good traditional governance (GTG), more so, when the foundations of GTG and its characteristic features, based on natural law and natural rights, were firmly established during the era of the Kingdom’s Premier Monarchs (Ndoli-Okpara, Opuamakuba, Alagbariya and Asimini), up to the reign of King Halliday-Awusa. Therefore, the aim of this socio-legal and divinely-based study is to sensitise and spur successive apex traditional rulers of the Kingdom, namely the Monarchs (Amanyanapu) and Country Chiefs (Se-Alapu) to promote and practise GTG, based on the ethical relationship between governance, government and service to the people, centred on truth, fair-play, public-spiritedness, responsible stewardship, integrity, hearkening to the voice or voices of reason and abiding by due process. The interrelated, intertwined and harmonious relationship of the past, through the present, to the future, embedded in the subject-matter and discipline of history, is thus important in the context of this study, as same promote the need for GTG, based on traditional government social responsibility (TGSR), premised on the relationship of natural law with good governance (GG) established and nourished by Ancient Grand Bonny Kingdom’s above-stated four Premier Monarchs, and thereafter sustained up to the era of King Halliday-Awusa, in the form of selfless leadership. Such a form and standard of traditional rulership would promote sustainable community development (SCD) in Bonny Kingdom. Finally, from the base and bedrock of divine natural law, the study recommends that an incumbent of the throne of kingship in Bonny should painstakingly promote and practise TGSR, ingrained in GTG, towards all-embracing advancement, prosperity and SCD of oil-rich and Christianised Ancient Grand Bonny Kingdom, in the ongoing worldwide era of globalisation, especially economic globalisation, GG and SD. Keywords: Natural Law; Natural Right; Bonny Kingdom; Amanyanapu (Monarchs/Kings); Founding Ancestors; Founding Fathers, Patriarchs and Premier Monarchs; Aseme (Royal Pedigree: Aboriginal Royal); Duawaris (Founding & Aboriginal Royal Houses); Blood Descendants; Human Rights; Good Public Sector Governance (Good Governance [GG]); Good Traditional Governance (GTG); Traditional Government Social Responsibility (TGSR), Positive Law, Sustainable Community Development (SCD), Sustainable Development (SD); Wari (Ward, Lineage or House); House System. DOI: 10.7176/DCS/10-3-08 Publication date: March 31 st 2020