TRADITIONAL GOVERNANCE SYSTEM AND THE CONTROL OF INSURGENCY IN BADE EMIRATE, YOBE STATE

Abstract

Insecurity has remained one of the daunting problems in human organizations since time immemorial. Human beings are in constant search for security to ensure self-sustenance and societal development. The traditional governance system plays an important role in the formation, growth, and development of society. These roles such as maintenance of peace, provision of leadership roles, proprietary to culture and custom of the people and above all ensuring the transitions of the values of the society from one generation to another. In Yobe State the threat of insecurity posed by the rise of the Boko Haram insurgency could be traced to governance issues where governance is defined as the way and manner, including all the institutional arrangements through which a country pursue its internal policies and external relations with ‘development’ at its core. Therefore, given the character of the traditional institutions in Yobe state and Bade emirate in particular in uniting the community to ensure proper security of lives and property. This paper thus intends to interrogate the security challenges in contemporary Bade emirate with emphasis on the role of the traditional governance system in promoting security. The paper adopted the primary and secondary method of data collection anchored on the Mass Society theory. The major findings of the paper reveal that insecurity in Yobe state and Nigeria, in general, can no longer be interrogated from the militarists’ perspective alone, but rather a re-thinking on the traditional governance system to check the persistence of the violations of the traditional political, economic and social relations among citizens that breeds suspicion and distrusts. The paper recommends amongst other things that, the government should as a matter of urgency put in place, policies, and programs that will strengthen the traditional institutions throughout the country so that they can perform their traditional roles as custodians of the values of the society.