ABSTRACT
This chapter brings together key findings from this volume on traditional authorities and security governance in Nigeria. First, it shows that traditional authority systems have expanded and changed considerably in the last three decades, even if their position remains precarious. Second, since 1999, the roles of traditional rulers in security governance have also expanded, but their substantive impact on security remains difficult to assess. Their roles include dispute settlement, persuasion, providing relief materials, administration, committee work, and coordinating community policing. Traditional rulers often engage in these roles as brokers, creating – and relying on – connections with other communities and elites. Third, the chapter highlights different reasons that have allowed traditional rulers to reinvent their engagement with security governance, despite their weak legal position. These include their embeddedness in their communities; their ability to use indigenous knowledge; and their increasing integration into the Nigerian state. At the same time, the chapter argues that it is the very distance from Nigeria's patrimonial politics, and the seeming legal impotence that this implies, that has allowed traditional authorities to reinvent themselves in ways that are potentially productive and sensitive to their local contexts.
