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Abstract 

It is common knowledge that majority of the conflicts that are ravaging in Africa are often directly related to ethnic issues. Most African societies are living in rural areas, and they tend to pay their allegiance to their cultural, traditional and customary systems than the modern democratic governance. The fact that the tremendous influence the traditional leaders and traditional leadership systems have in their society as custodians and watchdogs to peaceful co-existence, conflict resolution and peace building makes them an essential part of Africa’s future. The need for them to maintain peace at the base of the community is paramount to any development. The proper assessment of these traditional systems, their structures, ways of governance, roles and activities in line with peacebuilding is the focus of this study. Traditional leadership systems include but are not limited to traditional leaders, traditional institutions, indigenous wisdoms and governance. These have been with the society from time immemorial. Traditional leaders are not those discussed in modern leadership theory approaches as one of the traditional leaderships, along with the skill, behavior and authenticity approaches. Traditional leadership refers to traditional kings, queens, tribal chiefs, elders, spiritual leaders and local wise men and women, who acquire their authority and legitimacy either spiritually, by their merits, through genealogy of family ancestors and others. Their main social and historical functions are administration and leadership, justice, paternity or maternity, protection, religious functions, nurturing, teaching, representing the community, tribe and nation. Africa used to be a continent run by its own indigenous wisdom, culture and ways of leadership. This has never been an empty claim but has been enormously supported by written sources, supplemented with information gained through the disciplines of archaeology, philology and anthropology. In post-colonial Africa majority of conflicts that are ravaging in the continent are often directly related to ethnicity. It is a fight among Africans but the root cause was laid by Westerners. The fight is ethnic based (tribal) not economics like the colonial war. The colonial war was based on who owns what, the war among Africans is based on identity “who is who”. Most African societies are living in rural areas, and they tend to pay their allegiance to their identity (cultural, traditional and customary systems) than the modern democratic governance and it became a source of conflict rather than harmony- “beauty in diversity”. The genocide in Rwanda which was based on who is Hutu and who is Tutsi was the evidence of such conflicts. The advent of modern leadership concept brought with itself misconceptions concerning traditional leadership and as a result traditional leadership was often perceived as underdeveloped, primitive, autocratic type of leadership. These tendencies overlooked the core importance and opened a blind rejection of all indigenous leadership knowledge and the legacy of God given wisdom. Modern lifestyle, attitude towards western theories have confused and shuttered the long surviving and important part of African leadership, which is referred as the traditional leadership or sometimes referred as indigenous or customary leadership. Africa was targeted by the west mainly because of its resources be it human, natural and accumulated wealth such as gold and other precious materials as in the story of Mansa Musa, who was believed to be the richest man who ever lived. In countries such as Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Cameron traditional leadership is incorporated into their constitutions and is playing its part. The reality in Rwanda is a different experience because Rwanda is currently a republic where all forms of traditional governance mechanisms (related to kingships and the like) were abolished by the constitution; all existing forms of governance are under a decentralization framework and feed into each other from grassroots to the office of the President. In other African countries such as Ethiopia, though there is an article in the constitution of the country which is in favor of institutionalizing the traditional leadership, its practicality is not yet fully materialized for the constitution is a good example of “constitutional principles under duress”. The traditional leadership systems that have been practiced among different African communities endured colossal hostile environments such as colonialism and post-colonial political environments. This shows the extent of acceptance they have in the community. The potential they have and the contributions they could bring are magnanimous. But in the past they were pushed to the background so much so that they could not contribute to the advancement of the African people. Recently with the development of new thoughts in academia and politics towards peacebuilding, the traditional leadership role as peacemakers and peace builders has started to be in the limelight. Identifying and incorporating the refined wisdom of these ancient traditions in the contemporary leadership is homework left for each country to ponder on. The main purposes of traditional leadership systems are to keep the culture and norms of a given society by building peace and social coexistence at the grassroots. This study aims to assess these traditional leadership systems and their contributions to peacebuilding in Africa. Furthermore, the researcher attempts to find out the structures, performance, acceptance, importance, roles, relationships, and barriers facing these systems in light of epistemological and ontological facts. The necessary data which were collected through in-depth interviews were sorted and analyzed using the thematic analysis method. The findings show that the contributions of traditional leadership systems to peacebuilding are progressively increasing, but it’s potential is yet to be utilized waiting for conducive environment and political willingness. Therefore, the potential and the contribution are unparalleled. Keywords: Traditional leadership systems, Peacebuilding, Assessment, Contribution