International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) |Volume V, Issue III, March 2021|ISSN 2454-6186 www.rsisinternational.org Page 178 Revisiting Indigenous Institutions for Leadership Revival in Africa Johnson Olawale BAMIGBOSE, Omowumi BOBOYE* Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko, Ondo State, Nigeria *Corresponding Author Abstract: The crisis of governance in Africa has call forpublic outcry over the years. This crisis has eventually led to several challenges including leadership mistrust, climate change, economic recession, youth unemployment, violent conflicts, corruption, sustainable housing, transportation and cities, demography and the youth question, food security, population and city planning quagmires. Quite disturbing is the continual dependence on their colonial masters to champion the path of development even in the 21st century global arena. Hence, development continues to be a mirage in the desert as a result of weak and corrupt political leadership associated with the continent. Based on the foregoing, this paper dwelling on the descriptive and analytical methods revisited the indigenous institutions of Yoruba Obaship as a lesson for leadership revival in Africa. This becomes imminent as the present governance structure has failed to fully address the identified development conundrums. Indigenous institutions should be seen as what can be tagged “Tiwa N Tiwa” and so the lessons garnered can be used in reviving the culture of political leadership in the land. In the same vein, structural-functionalism approach was adopted to explain the imperativeness of indigenous leadership as subjects pay more loyalty to their belief system compare to the over- bloated modern democracy. The paper recommends a revivification of indigenous leadership styles, collaborative governance by both democratic and traditional institutions and incorporation of the indigenous virtues into the political leadership among others. Keywords: Indigenous institution, Leadership, Democracy and Yoruba Traditional Institution. I. INTRODUCTION he recent developmental conundrums in African continent have spur many to begin the journey to the world of both known and unknown as a recipe. This becomes imminent as today‟s governance through the modern structure has failed to entrench the overall transformation of the society. This has semblance with the line of argument supported by scholars in African countries. To put this succinctly, Wunch and Olowu (1990) argued that the tragedy that the contemporary Africa is facing stems essentially from the structural defective pattern of governance adopted by the African political elites since those countries attained political independence in the 1960s. This position was further expatiated in the work of Ayo (2002) when he critically ex- rayed the potency of Yoruba community affairs as an alternative to the state-led administration that has failed to deliver public goods even till the present 21st century administrative pattern. Ayo (2002) argued that the form of governance in Africa is highly centralized and that efforts to decentralize has always been frustrated by the central governments. It is quite visible that for African countries that embrace federal structure, it is always the federal/central government that exercise overwhelming control over other sub-national governments (State/local). This is more or less antithetical to the ideal federal democratic arrangement and it is a reflection of what becomes of political leadership and even the frantic effort in addressing the developmental challenges. Adedeji e tal (1991) in Ayo (ibid) argued that state control national resources and monopoly of decision-making power has retarded socioeconomic development in Africa. This problem cannot be isolated from the leadership style of many acclaimed democrats who have failed to provide the needed leadership in the area of policies that are born out of genuineness and public interest. Many of them are elected through democratic means but are driven by autocratic leadership style. They can therefore be described as autocratic leaders in democratic camouflage. It is apposite to state that leadership is key to any goal in life and so the failure of African leaders could be ascribed as the major setback in addressing all the socio-economic, poverty, violence among other challenges facing the continent. The ongoing „imperial presidents‟ syndrome‟ in most of the African countries through seeking of third term in office by upturning the constitution through the instrumentality of legislative arm with no conscience has always generated concern for the continual survival of the continent. There are cases to support this as it is happening in Guinea, Ivory Coast and the recent events that culminated into ousting President Keita of Mali and his Prime Minister. In another development, modern political leadership can be said to be political commercialist and merchants. They are political intruders seeking to lick from the public treasury and the continual leveraging on the economic potentials of the country and thus, perpetuating themselves in power. One can simply argue that politicians in Africa have persist in impoverishing the masses and hence, poverty has been a seed germinating vote-buying, corruption and armed robbery. All these are quite rare in the African traditional society. It is evident that many of these leaders do not possess the values and ethical standard which African indigenous institution are proud of. In the true sense of it, these values T