Identify five ways in which traditional rulers controlled their subjects in pre-colonial Nigeria.
Explanation
- Through their intermediary role as representatives of the gods
- Powers to appoint and dismiss officials
- Adjudication of laws/settlement of disputes
- Rewards/honour
- Enforcement of customs, traditions and conventions
- Punish law breakers/deviants in society/Banishment of criminals
- Organise and supervise communal labour
- Imposition of levies/taxes
- Law making functions
- Formulation and implementation of policies
- Symbol of power and authority
- Custodians of the land
- Invocation of spirits of the ancestors to regulate the conduct of their subjects
- Oath taking by the subjects
- Dethronement of sub-chiefs
- The use of trial by ordeal
- The establishment of law enforcement institutions.