Abstract

For almost four decades now, United Nations has been propagating the virtue of gender equality and equity in virtually every sphere of life, most specifically in the area of governance. However, what the UN has been belabouring to achieve and has not actually succeeded in doing, is found to be natural with some African cultures. A research group in my Department, Department of Local Government Studies, Faculty of Administration, Obafemi Awolowo University, embarked on extensive research of examining different cultures in Nigeria with the sole aim of finding evidence of gender balance in traditional governance. It paid off recently with the discovery, in some communities, of the existence of gender balance in traditional governance. In some of the communities studied, we discovered balanced governance by both female and male kings each having its own Palace, Cabinet members, duties and other traditional governing structures that are replica of each other. With the success of this discovery, an appeal was made to foremost male traditional rulers on the need to embrace, uplift and showcase them nationally and internationally (Below are the pictures of some of them). The concern of this paper therefore is to show the working relationship between the male and female kings in the communities where this tradition of gender balance in governance exists. And also to educate the world how gender balance in governance should be as against the current trend of peanut role given to female in modern governance.