Nigeria is not collapsing with noise. It is softening with consent.
Not with tanks.
Not with decrees.
But with signatures.
Authority is not always destroyed in public. Sometimes it is adjusted quietly, reinterpreted gently, and weakened politely until what once commanded reverence now survives on permission.
There was a time when kings were not decorative. They were decisive. Their presence settled disputes before they became crises. Their words carried consequence. Their silence carried warning. Their legitimacy did not flow from governors or party structures. It came from ancestry, memory, continuity.
A throne was not given. It was inherited. Guarded by custom. Protected by lineage. Anchored in centuries no administration could rewrite.
Today that inheritance is being negotiated.
Consider Ijebuland. When the Awujale passed after more than six decades on the throne, what should have been a solemn continuation of tradition began to echo with petitions, political calculations, and procedural uncertainty. Succession, once guided by sacred order, started to resemble civic arbitration.
And this is not isolated.
In Kano, a historic emirate that once stood unified under a single moral voice became administratively divided. In Oyo, definitions shifted. In Rivers, boundaries moved. In Ekiti and Benue, structures recalibrated.
Different states. Different headlines. The same undercurrent.
Strong traditional rulers are inconvenient to fragile politics. They outlive governments. They command loyalty that cannot be withdrawn at the ballot box. They speak from moral ground that does not expire after four years.
So dilution becomes strategy.
Multiply the thrones. Redraw jurisdictions. Remove the outspoken. Reward the compliant.
Control the crown and you manage influence.
But reverence cannot be manufactured.
A king who calculates before speaking is no longer a custodian of truth. A palace waiting for political approval cannot fully defend its people. A crown dependent on executive comfort slowly stops being sacred.
And once sacredness thins, something deeper erodes.
Traditional rulers once served as buffers between citizens and the state. They absorbed anger before it exploded. They mediated tension before it became violence. They preserved identity while modern institutions handled policy. They criticized power without needing to campaign against it.
That delicate balance mattered.
Today many traditional institutions operate carefully. Words are measured. Interventions are cautious. Authority feels conditional.
Communities feel it.
In Kano, memories remain of an emir who spoke without trembling, who questioned authority without rehearsing consequences. That memory still circulates in markets and mosques. Today the landscape looks different. Authority remains, but it feels managed. Structured. Watched.
Respect offered out of calculation is not respect. It is compliance.
The danger is not dramatic. There are no sirens announcing it. There are no burning palaces. The erosion is gradual. And gradual decay is harder to reverse because it rarely provokes alarm.
When political power weakens traditional authority to consolidate itself, both become smaller.
Governance that fears cultural legitimacy reveals insecurity. A state that teaches its kings to bow teaches its citizens that nothing stands above politics. And when nothing stands above politics, everything becomes negotiable.
This is larger than monarchy.
It is about institutional balance.
Modern governance and traditional authority were not enemies. One was meant to manage law and administration. The other was meant to anchor identity, continuity, and moral grounding. They were designed to coexist, each limiting the excesses of the other.
When politics dominates both, imbalance is inevitable.
Nigeria does not suffer from excessive tradition. It suffers from fragile institutions. Weakening the few structures that still command organic respect is not reform. It is short term consolidation disguised as restructuring.
Because long after governors leave office, long after party alignments shift, the consequences remain.
Credibility diluted.
Courage discouraged.
Authority negotiated.
And citizens left asking who truly speaks for them.
The most dangerous loss is not the crown itself. It is the compass.
When history becomes negotiable, culture becomes optional.
When culture becomes optional, loyalty becomes transactional.
When loyalty becomes transactional, governance becomes unstable.
This is not nostalgia for pre colonial hierarchy. It is recognition of structural reality.
Nations endure when some institutions feel larger than temporary power. When everything bends to political convenience, permanence disappears. Trust erodes. Legitimacy thins.
Crowns were never meant to kneel before electoral cycles.
When they do, a country does not immediately collapse.
It simply loses its spine.
Shaakaa can be reached on:
shaakaastephanie@yahoo.com
