Focus On The Tiv Nation | Institutions,Politics & Policies By Hon Wilfred Bula.

An institution is an organisation founded for a religious, social, professional, educational or traditional purpose with an established law or practice. It serves as a structure or mechanism of social order that governs the behaviors of individuals within a community. Institutions are identified with a social purpose, transcending individuals and intentions by mediating the rules that govern living beings. An institution therefore, is a social structure in which people cooperate and which influences the behavior of people and the way they live. It has a permanent purpose and does not come to an end with the demise of a person.
It is therefore deducible that an institution exists on the following fundamental planks;
1. It is an organisation.
2. Established by laws and or practice.
3. Social order mechanism.
4. Purpose, aims and objectives.
5. Lifespan beyond individuals and persons.
Drawing from the above, we can easily say that, an institution is bigger than the individuals it is set to socially integrate and should not, cannot, or be allowed to be manipulated, controlled or directed by any single personality or groups of persons to fulfil personal gains or vendetta. So far as the institution is set to mediate in the rules that govern living individuals, it may not at all times make decisions that are acceptable to person or persons collectively but for the general good of the people it is set to overlook.
It is therefore very important to highlight here too that, the extent to which individuals positively or negatively project the institution to the eye of the public is reciprocatively the same way the public will rate the individuals in such an institution. Once you are associated with such, it becomes like a stigma of sort on your person. Meditative decisions taken in your favour or not, you a seen as a replica of the institution in the eye of an outsider. So maligning the institution and bringing it to nought due to privileged positions attained in society on grounds of vendetta, only opens up your inadequacies, shortcomings and failings in the same measure, to the world.
The individual is therefore bound to the institution especially, the traditional institution.
In an African context, specifically Nigeria, every individual is bound to the dictates and requirements of his or her traditional institution. Notwithstanding our religious biases and affiliations, there are in every traditional institution, laid down basic requirements that cannot be overlooked in the discharge of the individuals’ responsibility to it. And these bothers mainly on social responsibilities in strict compliance to laid down laws and practices of the people in such an institution. These laid down laws and practices cannot and should not be influenced by politics nor its policies thereof irrespective of the favour scale the institution had taken in time past to the disadvantage or discomfort of individuals that hold sway in the policies and politics of the day, in the present.
The traditional stool of the Tor Tiv is one of such traditional institutions. It is beyond the personality of the person who holds it in trust for the Tiv people. It is beyond the person of Dr. Alfred Akawe Torkula, THE BEGHER U TIV. It is an institution that every Tiv man on the face of the earth must be subject to. But of course, subject to salient issues that are in conflict with religious affiliations and biases. It is modelled after the family responsibility role of a father and therefore, wrests the responsibility of fatherhood of all Tiv people in the care of the custodian of the stool. In the face of this, it is expected that the father would adjudicate justice to all his children, chastising where necessary, advising as the situation may demand and out rightly rejecting proposals and projections that are seen not to positively put in good stead the position of a son, while even mediating on differences between children for amicable solutions for progress within the family. But of course, as it is with even our immediate family linages, it is not every decision taken by a father that is acceptable to the children especially in the face of disputes where a son may accuse the father of taking sides with another son in adjudication. This does not stop the father from been the father nor does it negate his role as the head. If the supernatural being, our heavenly creator could say, “Esau have I hated and Jacob have I loved” (Rom. 9:13; Mal.1:1-3) how much could we expect from mere mortal beings.
Be that as it may, the traditional stool of the Tor Tiv is an institution of sort that bears relevance to all its subjects and should be treated utmostly regally.
Anything short of that will be seen as bastardisation, not just its custodian but generally degradation in morals and learning of the collective of the Tiv race irrespective of how highly placed, individuals subject to it may be. So also, a disregard and disrespect for the tenets of the institution sends a clear testimonial to the fact that it is peopled by persons who have lost a purpose in direction and wonderers without a vision and therefore must not be taken seriously in the affairs of life and human endeavours as it relates with other climes in nation building.
I had first met Dr. Alfred Akawe Torkula in 1986. He was then a commissioner in the Military administration of Benue State and a very close friend and mentor to my brother in-law, Mr. Titus Madugu and had come to chair the wedding of my elder sister, Caroline to Titus. As a young man who has just finished secondary school then, the experience was lost in time only to be flashed back to life when he was nominated and coronated as the Tor Tiv the IV. This coronation came with a lot of pomp in celebration and an epic moment in Tiv solidarity and coordinated unity. The Tiv people all over the world decided to raise the standards and equate the office of the Tor Tiv, a first class chief, to the outlook required of a chief of that calibre compared with other chiefs in the country. And this they did well and made a show of class with the office holder. I remember in 1988 at an ABU Zaria convocation ceremony in Samaru, the Tor Tiv had arrived in such royalty, from his limousine; a state of the art, customised Mercedes Benz, to his royal dancers and guards reminiscent to what is obtainable to a procession of the Emir of Kano or the Sultan of Sokoto. We proudly held our heads high and wished TIV was written on our foreheads as we meandered in the mammoth crowd.

Then in 2008, I had gone to the palace as an adhoc committee member of the Benue State House of Assembly on constitution review, to interact with him and seek his impute on the role of the traditional institution to nation building. He had availed us prompt audience and educated us immensely on the subject matter and even gave us hand outs in the form of a book he had just written on sundry subjects. That was the last of my physical interaction with him to date.
In 2010, as the elections of 2011 drew near, political faceoff between the then incumbent, Dr. Torwua Suswam and Senator George Akume, reached an all-time high. Suswam was seeking a second term in office as Governor so was Akume as senator. They were both of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) but this deep rooted altercation had caused so much damage that there was a breach in the party with loyalist to Akume and Suswam standing at daggers drawn. This led to the 2011 decamping of Akume to the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the foisting of a candidate to oust Suswam in the person of Prof. Steve Ugbah and the introduction of the ‘Ugbah nyor, Ishor chanji’ slogan. This high level politicking and entrenched hatred between these two Tiv sons of prominence was such that if not nibbled in the bud, could bring about the beginning of a disintegrated Tiv Nation and a gradual decline in national political relevance. Thus the mediative role of the Tor Tiv was sort for.

He, the Tor Tiv reasoned that, since a similar situation had played out in 2003 when Akume, as Governor was seeking a second term in office and he had intervened to ask Paul Unongu to sheath his sword and supported the then Governor for a second term, (even though Unongo never backed down) Akume in the same vein, notwithstanding Suswans fast eroding and failing profile, should step down the Ugba support and allow Suswan to finish his term. Moreover, he reasoned, they were contesting for different offices that had very little bearing on the other. Akume, just like Unongu in 2003, reneged and went out full hog to work against Suswam up to the Supreme courts. Suswam survived the onslaught and went ahead to finish his second term in office. But the Tiv nation got the biting for it.
The Tor Tiv openly gave his support and blessings to Suswam while allegedly placing a curse on Akume for disrespecting his office and persons. This brought about a deeper crisis affecting the traditional institution and its supposed mingling in politics to the extent that local folk singers reeled out insolent disparaging songs that tended to and indeed rubbished and brought the institution to disrepute.

So entered politics into the affairs of the highly revered and respected institution. The institution, as I said earlier is worth its salt only if the individuals that make up its body are also worth their salt. So as it lost steam, so also, the Tiv nation began a gradual decline into national irrelevance even as it has found itself today. The Tor Tiv office lost its voice and was unable to call to order dissenting voices of its subject. And then, policies to further demystify it came to the fore. The necessary up keep, welfare and even medicals were shelved. This became even further degenerated when Ortom, who hails from thesame Guma Local Government with Dr. Torkula, became governor of Benue State. Either by acts of omission or commission, of which the latter seems more representing; the institution was made a waste of irrelevance. Many are wont to believe that, since Ortom was singlehandedly foisted on the people by Akume and his cabal, he had no choice but to do the bidding of his benefactor.

Now, politics and its policies has left the institution without the effect of its laws and practices so much so that the events of the last 72 hours or thereabout has left one wondering if there even exist any institution like the Tiv traditional stool at all. From the manner in which he embarked on a journey to commune with the ancestors to the way his whereabout or otherwise was made public and then the hurried manner in which, without a proper channel of ‘ijir tamen’ confirmation of his ‘whereabout’ and or if he had reached his destination or not, a purported public notice was made for a final consolidation of his mortal body to dust in about two weeks from now.

How could a people degenerate to this level of despicable humiliation of an institution that represent a collective and stands as the mirror of self-reassurance as this? How can we allow a few disgruntled personally aggrieved individuals trample on our collective pride and self-esteem and do nothing about it? How can we, the Tiv people, allow politics and its negative policies rub on us a toga of a people without a direction and helpless to self-serving individuals that have little or nothing to offer the race but clinging on the power of divide and rule to ride to personal heights? Where is the inner Tiv strength of bravado and proud independence as enshrined in the adage; ‘mtseu ke twagh ga!’?

Why? What? How? Where? When?
We must rise up in this generation to distance ourselves from the erroneous picture of a representation that is not us else we may just wake up someday and find out that we are an extinct race, irrelevant and of no value to the committee of nations.
God forbid.
Sail fair, Dr. Alfred Akawe Kaase Torkula

Written by Hon Wilfred Bula.