The essence of SNTRC – common origins and collective aspirations.
The Southern Nigerian Traditional Rulers Council goes beyond the coming together of the traditional rulers of a British demarcated territory, Southern Protectorate that continued to be identified as Southern Nigeria till date. As the Ooni of Ife HRM Oba Adeyeye Babatunde Ogunwusi stated this is the coming together of brother kings, the coming together of the indigenous African civilization. A civilization being tribes linked by common genetic origins, cultural values and information Retrieval systems. Like the sixteen sector knowledge bank known as Ifa-Afa-Iha-Efa that our advanced social organization.
This coming together of the cultural custodians of the Lower Niger area should have occurred organically from the very beginning, as the core of the indigenous African civilization. Unfortunately 350yrs of militarization by an external civilization for slaves for arms trade that inspired new tribal power centers, and 100 years of colonization institutionalized them, while de-constitutionalizing our civilization.
Though all the ethnic nationalities in the SNTRC are of the indigenous African civilization, there are a lot more indigenous African groups not covered by it due to their categorization as North, specifically Middlebelt. Nevertheless, we of the South would come together for our common aspirations towards a better and more prosperous coexistence in Nigeria and beyond. We shall work together to stem the rising tide of tribal rivalry and xenophobia.
The state of our civilization has been bastardized and derailed, and we need to shore up the understanding and application of our civilizational values. Despite all the damaging propaganda of foreign civilizations over millennia against our indigenous African civilization, we can still proudly claim that we had the highest moral standard, pockets of advanced governance, appreciation of natural laws, and most important our binary complimentarity philosophy necessary for peaceful coexistence in a multipolar world.
The SNTRC will be focused as long term stakeholders in the cause of abundance and peace for all. In order to reflect our civilizational values and philosophies of binary complimentarily, we shall push for the constitutionalization of traditional polities for polycentric representative governance. For equity, justice and meritocracy, we shall serve as the moral conscience of our great nation, Nigeria. We shall seek to be directly involved in the administration of our electoral systems to ensure fairness. Most important, we shall find ways to inspire mass public works in social housing, railways and other infrastructure gaps over the last five hundred years of slavery, colonization and neocolonialism.