Contending Issues in the Niger Delta Crisis of Nigeria - Journal of ...

Dr. Akpomuvire Mukoro
indigenes who govern oil beering states must be made accountable to
the people to use funds allocated for actual development of the region
instead of the current looting and pillaging of the state coffers’
(Igun:2008).
Mabogunje (1995:11), asked two very pertinent questions while
concluding his work. His first question was “What do we know about
the traditional institutions of local governance in different parts of the
country” Second, “In what form have these institutions survived and
in what ways have they been modified or are being modified to make
them more functionally appropriate to present circumstance” A ready
answer I may want to provide is that the nation should be able to
appreciate, evaluate and capture the activities of the indigenous
institutions and build them into our laws and statutes. To start with,
according to Erero (2000:56),
The process of reconstituting order in the larger arena called Nigeria
would entail having communities or representatives of the diverse
communities in Nigeria meeting in congress or in a sovereign National
conference to craft institutional mechanisms in constituting what
might be referred to as local, state/regional and federal government.
The bottom line of my position is that the constitution has to be
radically restructured to derive from the collective wisdom of the
people. Its present state, composition and method of operation is
89