Natural Right of Blood Descendant-Females of the Founding Ancestors of Bonny Kingdom to Leadership Positions: Spotlight on Queen Kambasa and Legacies of Her Reign

Abstract

This study emanates from a previous work of the Author on ‘Natural Law as Bedrock of Good Governance’ in Bonny Kingdom. The previous work examined the origin of public sector governance from the beginning of the Kingdom, within the rubrics of the house system. The work established that although the Kingdom’s form of traditional government is hierarchical in form, during the era of its Founding Ancestors, decision-making and decision-implementation processes were characteristically the collective affair of its homogeneous founding kindred group. The work demonstrates that the Kingdom’s primordial form of governance was public-spirited by nature and thus based on responsible stewardship to its entire people and Kingdom at large. It proves that natural law was the bedrock of the reign of the Founding Fathers, Patriarchs and Premier Monarchs of the Kingdom, namely Ndoli-Okpara, Opuamakuba, Alagbariya and Asimini. That natural law has features, which characterised the reign of the Premier Monarchs; these features include love, truth, goodwill, selflessness, responsible stewardship, integrity, fair-play, sincerity of purpose, transparency, accountability, harmonious and unanimous decision-making and decision-implementation processes, which amounted to partnership in governance, towards the overall good of the people and the Kingdom. The previous work thus qualifies the reign of the Premier Monarchs of the Kingdom as being fundamentally selfless. The work establishes that based on the landmark form of public-spirited leadership of Bonny Kingdom’s Premier Monarchs, successive Monarchs of the Kingdom, who assumed Kingship on the basis of natural law and its accompanying natural right of succession to leadership, promoted and practised selfless leadership; this was exemplified by the administration of King Halliday-Awusa. The work arrives at the conclusion that the Founding Ancestors, led by the Premier Monarchs, established an admirable and commendable form of governance that exemplifies how the people and lineages (families or houses) of the Kingdom should relate between and among themselves on the basis of the characteristic features of natural law. It enjoins succeeding generations of the Kingdom, led by its subsequent Monarchs and other members and organs of the apex traditional ruling council, to consolidate on the exemplary leadership qualities of the Premier Monarchs and King Halliday-Awusa, by enhancing and practising traditional government social responsibility (TGSR), towards good traditional governance (GTG) and sustainable community development (SCD) in oil-rich and Christianised Grand Bonny Kingdom. Furthermore, the previous work establishes that natural law-oriented natural right to leadership positions and succession to kingship in primordial Grand Bonny Kingdom was not discriminatory against female blood descendants of the Founding Ancestors of the Kingdom. This gave impetus to Princes Kambasa to desirously and intensively aspire to become a Monarch of the Kingdom. She succeeded her blood-ancestors as Monarch, after the reign of her father, King Edimini. The previous work then remarked that the circumstances of ascension of Queen Kambasa merit to be examined in an independent study, which is capable of contributing to the worldwide knowledge industry; this remark necessitated the present study. Therefore, the aim of this socio-legal and divinely-rooted study is to examine the natural right of blood descendant-females of the Founding Ancestors of Bonny Kingdom to traditional leadership positions, particularly the position of Kingship, using Queen Kambasa as case-study . Keywords: Natural Law; Natural Right; Succession; Kingship ( Amanyanaboship ); Bonny Kingdom; Founding Ancestors; Founding Fathers, Patriarchs and Premier Monarchs; Good Public Sector Governance (Good Governance [GG]); Good Traditional Governance (GTG); Traditional Government Social Responsibility (TGSR); Female Blood Descendants; Blood Descendants; Reign; Legacy (Legacies); Queen Kambasa; Queen Amina of Zaria. DOI: 10.7176/DCS/10-3-09 Publication date: March 31 st 2020