Principle of Separation of Powers in the old Oyo empire s a template for Contemporary political structure in Nigeeria
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Date
2021
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IQRA Journal: Theoogical and Religious Studies.
Abstract
The well- structured political administrative set-up of the old Oyo Empire allowed relative
peace to reign in various communities and traditional rulers were not left out as they were
charged with the responsibility of ensuring that there was peaceful co-existence among people
in those communities. Therefore, for there to be peace in the old Oyo Empire, the Alaafin and
his Council of Chiefs known as the Oyo-Mesi developed a structure built on the principle of
separation of powers to address various conflict related matters. This was borne out of the fact
that for development to be achieved in any community, people must live in peace no matter
what. In order to achieve this, separation of power was put in place to avoid usurpation of duty
and overlap of functions. The peaceful co-existence experienced in the old Oyo Empire was
made possible due to this deeply rooted principle. Existing studies on the roles played by
Alaafin and his chiefs in the old Oyo Empire have mainly focussed on the social, economic
and religious perspectives with little attention paid to how Alaafin in council made use of the
principle of separation of powers to resolve conflicts, and how such strategies can be adopted
as a template in the contemporary political structure in Nigeria today.
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Oke Olusegun Peter