The Gbong Gwom Jos and Chairman, Plateau Council of Chiefs, Chief Jacob Buba Gyang, has said that state governors do not have the authority to redefine traditional boundaries.
\n\u201cI am not aware of any authority by a governor to redefine traditional boundaries. Government cannot redefine boundaries where there is no problem,\u201d Buba said on Friday in Jos.
\nThe monarch, who spoke at the \u201cNzem Berom 2019\u201d, an annual cultural festival of the Berom ethnic group of Plateau, was reacting to a Thursday circular in which the state government created two traditional councils out of the Jos Traditional Council.
\nThe creation of the two traditional councils \u2013 Jos North and Riyom, has effectively whittled down the powers of the paramount ruler who superintends traditional rulers in the four local governments that make up the Jos Joint Traditional Council.
\nWith the split, the Gbong Gwom is left with only two local governments \u2013 Jos South and Barkin-Ladi.
\nAccording to the circular, the Attah Aten of Ganawuri will chair the Riyom Traditional Council, while the Chiefs of Anaguta and Afizere would be in charge of the two traditional stools in Jos North.
\n\u201cThere has been government pronouncement and actions to do with the traditional institution even when there was no problem. We have no problem with our neighbours and we have been in peace with one another.
\n\u201cThe traditional boundaries existed even before the existence of Nigeria as a country and every tribe on the Plateau has a defined territory.
\n\u201cWe want to appeal to politicians to respect these territories,\u201d Buba stated.
\nThe monarch further said that the country had a Land Use Act with the customary rights of land ownership embedded in it.
\n\u201cAll over Nigeria, land belongs to communities, families and individuals. We want to appeal that government must not take actions that will bring security challenges to Plateau.
\n\u201cYesterday night, I had to appeal to the Berom nation and its vibrant youths to please calm down.
\n\u201cI told them that as sensitive as the issue is perceived, it has not gone beyond the Berom traditional institution, the elders and the Berom organisations.
\n\u201cWe will sit with government and educate government about what it is; we hope we will have the listening ear of the governor to make amends where they have made errors.
\n\u201cThere is no human being that is perfect, we all make mistakes.
\n\u201cWe appeal to the Berom nation to please calm down. We will follow due process and we are absolutely sure that God will not forsake us,\u201d he added.
\nThe monarch pointed out that people were craving for peace because there would be no development without it.
\nHe said that he had had cause to write to the state government reminding it of reports of three judicial commissions of inquiry between 1994 to 2009.
\n\u201cAll the judicial commissions of inquiry agreed with the position that Jos belongs to the Afizere, Anaguta and the Berom.
\n\u201cI wrote a letter last year reminding the governor of this and requesting him to allow traditional rulers of these tribes to sit with the state boundary commission to determine everybody\u2019s boundary.
\n\u201cI am still appealing to government to look into this.
\n\u201cWe don\u2019t want a situation where government policy will bring chaos between neighbors, brothers and sisters that have lived together in peace over the ages,\u201d he said.
\nMr Jafaru Wuyep, Commissioner for Water Resources and Energy, who represented the governor, in his remarks, promised to convey the message.
\nWuyep acknowledge that the cultural festival was a unifying force that also promotes peaceful coexistence, adding that it was an avenue to project the Berom cultural identity, attract tourists and promote socio-economic activities.
\nThe News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that the cultural festival featured cultural activities by different groups and tribes, as well as the exhibition of Berom technology.
\nNAN also reports that\u00a0 awards were given to two Berom personalities that had distinguished themselves and contributed to the development of the people.
\nThe awardees included Barnabas Dusu, now late, who received a posthumous award for being instrumental to the translation of the Holy Bible into Berom language.
\nThe other recipient of the award was Marie Nyam, who is famed as a major contributor to the educational development of many sons and daughters of Berom land.
\nBy NAN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Gbong Gwom Jos and Chairman, Plateau Council of Chiefs, Chief Jacob Buba Gyang, has said that state governors do not have the authority to redefine traditional boundaries. \u201cI am not aware of any authority by a governor to redefine traditional boundaries. Government cannot redefine boundaries where there is no problem,\u201d Buba said on Friday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":10049,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18046\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}