By Why Nigeria’s traditional rulers keep landing in trouble, and how to stop it
The government of Bauchi has suspended the Emir of Lame over allegations of unlawful levies, interference in land administration, and meddling in mining operations, according to a Punch report published today, on November 14, 2026. It has set up a 12-member panel to report within three weeks. The allegations are unproven, and the government’s own statement says so. But the case is not isolated, and the pattern behind it deserves more attention than any single suspension.
A Pattern Beyond Bauchi
The accusations run across the South-West and beyond. In Oyo, the Sobaloju of Ofiki was suspended from January 5, 2026, for allegedly handing consent letters to mining companies and letting mining proceed inside state forest reserves, the Guardian reported. Ondo went further; Channels Television’s report of May 23, 2026, has an Akure court remanding the Ajagunode of Ode over a land-grabbing allegation, after the state itself ordered his arrest and charged him. Leadership recorded charges against two traditional rulers and others, with arraignment set for September 25, 2025, and the state’s Attorney-General took care to say that every defendant is presumed innocent. Interestingly, every case is not about land. Legit.ng carried the story of the Baale of Yale Camp, in Ondo, arraigned for flogging villagers who refused to pay an illegal toll. In Lagos, Sahara Reporters detailed on September 6, 2025, how Ajegunle residents accuse the Oba of Ijora of seizing properties, extorting owners and imposing arbitrary levies. Many of these rulers deny the claims, and the denials count. Accusation is not proof, as Delta showed. Leadership reported that a commission of inquiry cleared the Obi of Ogwashi-Uku of land-seizure allegations after his accusers produced no documents to support them.
We do not know who is guilty in most of these cases. We can ask why so many land in the same place, which is land, levies and mining, and the record points to four structural failures.
Why It Keeps Happening
The first is a throne with no constitutional footing. A legal appraisal by Osy Ezechukwunyere Nwebo says the 1999 Constitution contains no provision for the role of traditional rulers. According to a Guardian report of his 2024 lecture at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, the Etsu Nupe said no federal law or constitutional provision recognises monarchs. A Guardian opinion piece argues that rulers are subject to the authority of local government chairmen and governors, and cites a survey in which 62% said there are no effective mechanisms for making them accountable to their people. A constitutional lawyer, Aondoakaa, told Arise News that rulers are like religious bodies with no coercive powers, yet people obey when they speak, and that the law governing their appointments is state law. Moral authority without defined duties is where abuse finds room.
The second failure is that rulers hold the keys to land and consent while the limits on those keys stay vague. Zamfara’s governor, Dauda Lawal, banned traditional rulers from issuing mining consent letters after concluding that the letters had been recklessly abused, Leadership reported. Bauchi had already moved in the same direction. In January 2024, allAfrica carried the state’s decision to bar individuals, groups and monarchs from issuing mining consent letters without ministry clearance. Nasarawa followed with a ban aimed at illegal lithium miners, according to the 21st Century Chronicle. Taraba’s governor, Agbu Kefas, went further and condemned indiscriminate land sales alongside illegal consent letters. The cost is not small. An allAfrica report published on December 9, 2024, put Taraba’s losses to illegal mining at more than N10 billion a year, with community leaders often accused of conniving. Governments do not keep banning what nobody is doing.
The third is thin and uneven pay. In Abia, a monarch told Vanguard on May 25, 2025, that some rulers had been living on N10,000 a month until the governor stepped in, and Premium Times reported on December 24, 2024, that Governor Alex Otti approved N250,000 a month from that December. Bayelsa tells a different story. Its government, Trust Radio reported, says fourth-class rulers receive N30,000 a month and second-class rulers N120,000, after a first-class monarch claimed he was paid N28,000. Whatever the true figure, a stool that costs a great deal to run and is poorly funded invites informal income, and that inference is hard to dismiss.
The fourth is discipline that depends on who happens to be governing. Premium Times reported on March 31, 2026, that an Edo High Court voided the removal of the Okuokpellagbe of Okpella because he was denied a chance to respond to the allegations. In Enugu, Sahara Reporters reported on September 25, 2026, that Igwe William Ezugwu was suspended under the state’s Traditional Rulers Law, that social media users alleged victimisation after a visit by Peter Obi, and that the government denied any link. Bauchi has its own record. TheCable reported the suspension of the Emir of Misau over a farmer-herder clash, and Daily Trust later reported that the suspension was lifted and he was reinstated. Complaints are scattered as well. In an Ikere-Ekiti land dispute, the Guardian reported, a single petition went to the governor, the Attorney-General, the Bureau of Lands, the police and the DSS at once. When the referee is also a political actor, even a correct decision invites suspicion.
What Must Change
None of this requires a constitutional amendment. The four failures can each be answered by states acting within the laws they already have, and the first answer is the simplest, which is to declare which law you are acting under. A throne with no constitutional footing is governed by state statute, so the statute must be named every time. Bauchi’s governor signed a new Chieftaincy (Appointment and Deposition) Law, allAfrica reported on October 22, 2025, and the state owes the public a plain statement of which provision the Lame suspension rests on. Other states already do this. ThisDay reported on October 21, 2026, that Ogun suspended the Eselu of Iselu under Section 52(1) of its Obas and Chiefs Law, and Sahara Reporters reported on September 25, 2026, that Enugu cited sections of its Traditional Rulers Law when it suspended Igwe William Ezugwu. Citing the statute should be routine, not exceptional.
The same discipline must govern the keys to land and consent. States that have banned consent letters without ministry clearance should go further and publish a register of every letter issued, so that a ruler’s signature can be checked by anyone. Land sales should pass through government land registries, and any levy collected in a palace’s name should be authorised in law and paid into an audited community account. Then neither a ruler nor a community will have to guess what is lawful. Pay belongs in the same reform. Publishing pay scales by class will not stop misconduct, but it removes an excuse and ends the double standard between a ruler on N10,000 a month and one on N250,000.
The harder question is discipline, because that is where trust is lost. Suspension should be a last resort. It should rest on specific grounds, run for a fixed term, and carry conditions tied to protecting evidence, not open-ended restrictions on movement. Panels should be credibly independent. A retired judge or jurist, a member of the State Council of Obas and a civil society representative should sit alongside the security officers and ministry officials, so that the body weighing the allegations is not drawn only from the side making them. Findings should be published, and the ruler should be heard before any penalty is imposed. The Edo ruling and the Apetumodu’s complaint show how quickly a removal falls apart when that step is skipped. Communities, for their part, need one door for complaints, a single ministry desk with time limits, so that petitioners are no longer left chasing half a dozen offices.
All of this lands on Bauchi now. The three weeks given to the Lame panel are a test of whether the state will do what it asks of rulers, which is to act within the law and in the open. If the allegations fail, the emir should be reinstated promptly and publicly. If they hold, the sanctions should follow the law and be seen to follow it. Either way, a community that says it is being fleeced and a ruler who says he is innocent are both entitled to a process they can trust. That is the difference between accountability and score-settling.
