CHIEFS URGED TO LAUNCH RURAL INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (PAGE 38)

TRADITIONAL rulers have been urged to launch a rural industrial revolution to modernise indigenous technologies and promote local industries.
Dr Felix Onabajo, a lecturer at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Leads City University in Nigeria, who made the call, said traditional rulers hitherto used blacksmiths and goldsmiths in producing farm implements, local industrial equipment and jewellery.
He was speaking at a summit held under the auspices of the Certified Institute of Public Administrators and the Agency for Good Governance & Social Development (AGGSODEV) at Ashaiman.
It was attended by a cross-section of Ghanaian traditional rulers in Tema and Ashaiman and their counterparts from some states in Nigeria.
Speaking on the theme: “The role of traditional rulers in a growing democracy: Issues, challenges and prospects”, Dr Onabajo said the local manufacture of tools had helped to create jobs for the people at the local level.
He stressed that those implements could be modernised to boost rural industrialisation in the economies.
Dr Onabajo noted that the practice of occupying the people had successfully curbed rural-urban migration in the past.
He was of the view that rural development could be achieved without urbanisation because raw materials were readily available, coupled with the organisational capabilities of traditional rulers.
Dr Onabajo observed that a lot of the negative societal tendencies could be brought under control through the vision and hard work of traditional rulers by intensifying education against them at local level.
Dr Onabajo noted that such practices could encourage micro financing bodies to grant credit facilities to the people to go into entrepreneurship.
Dr Onabajo called on them to eradicate discrimination against women, emphasising that it had deterred most of the female gender from achieving their optimum.
He said though constitutional legislation in some countries did not allow their traditional rulers to be actively involved in politics, it did not mean they should sit on the fence and, therefore, urged them to be part of the electoral systems to support the right candidates.
Dr Onabajo dismissed the notion that traditional rulers had become glorified advisors to governments and called on them to sit up to their responsibilities to ensure that they become the vehicle for development and civilisation at the local levels.
The Director-General of AGGSODEV, Dr Felix Lowen, explained that the organisation decided to use the forum for traditional rulers, as most governments in Africa counted much on the support of traditional rulers in mobilising the grass-roots population for sustained democracy.
He noted that absolute powers of traditional rulers had gravely eroded after the advent of democratic institutions especially after the attainment of political independence and self-rule from the Western powers.
Dr Lowen was of the view that traditional rulers still had instrumental roles to play in suggesting ideas that could help in the evolution of a democratic culture, a virile economy and stability.
The Tema Mantse, Nii Adjei Kraku, remarked that it was refreshing to remind the traditional rulers of some of the important things that they could do to help the economies of their countries to build the African continent.
He appealed to his colleague chiefs to revive the gains of traditional rulership to bring back the dignity of the institution.
Nii Kraku, who chaired the summit, called for more educational programmes to enlighten the traditional rulers.