The Minister of Urban and Rural Development, James Sankwasa, has met with the various family members in dispute over chieftainship within the Gciriku Traditional Authority.

Sankwasa said only a few other stakeholders need to be consulted before putting the matter to rest.

The VaGciriku people have been without a Hompa for close to seven years, following the death of Kassian Shiyambi in 2019.

After his death, family members began fighting over the matter, which eventually made its way to the High Court.

The court ordered that the matter be remitted to the minister to make the final decision, hence the meeting with the VaGciriku community.

Sankwasa says he will be focusing on the traditional and customary law of succession.

The minister met each faction separately.

"I am glad that I engaged all parties including the traditional council, we have not finalized this case today because there are other parties or stakeholders that were supposed to have been summoned but they have not been summoned to this meeting.

"Some of the submissions made by the disputing parties requires that such stakeholders be also interviewed to throw light on the Gciriku traditional customary law. Since there was no time to summon them today, I will have to summon them on a different date, possibly next week because time is not on our side," he said.

Sankwasa reiterated that modern courts have no place when it comes to matters of succession in traditional authorities.

"Customary or traditional chieftainship are not determined by the modern courts… no matter how much money you spend on lawyers to go court, you will still come back to tradition… Modern courts looks at the technicalities. Not on the merit of the traditional applicable laws.

"The way we are doing today, we have taken tradition into business… lawyers we hire are business people and they cannot refuse if you come with an applicant to pay them… but our traditional methods of resolving chieftainship disputes were and must still be based on merit," Sankwasa said.

He says to be without a leader is not benefiting anyone.

"In the absence of a chief from 2019 to 2026, who is hearing traditional cases or disputes? Who is allocating communal land? Because in the absence of a chief, the land belongs to anybody. By the time we resolve this whole issue, the whole land will be gone."

The minister also called upon the elderly to avoid being misled by the youth.

"It is a shame to find one family at each other's throat, tearing one another to pieces… tearing your own values, your own well established, traditional, customary law.. that after you are no more here, there will be no tradition, no customs. So elderly people, please guide the youth, guide them properly... Let's not put money first and the perks that come with chieftainship because money expires, chieftainship is permanent," he stressed.