Who Decides? What Ubuntu Governance, Elders’ Councils, and Village Assemblies Teach Us About Power

Before anyone asked who governs, communities were already deciding together. What does that practice look like, and what does it ask of us?

Ubuntu governance is not a slogan. It lives in named institutions: elders’ councils in Kenya, arbitration councils in Karamoja and Teso, village assemblies among the Igbo. This article looks at what published research says about each, and just as plainly at what it does not say. (Moyo, via the University of Jyväskylä website)

Ubuntu Is a Way of Deciding, Not Only a Way of Feeling

Ubuntu teaches that a person is a person through other persons. (Moyo, via the University of Jyväskylä website) That sounds like a feeling, but it has always carried a rule about decisions: if my life is bound to yours, a choice that affects us both cannot be mine alone.

In 1995, South Africa’s Constitutional Court held in S v Makwanyane that the death penalty was inconsistent with the Interim Constitution. (S v Makwanyane) The judges wrote separate opinions, and several reached for ubuntu. A 2013 review of those opinions by Himonga, Taylor and Pope reports that Justice Mokgoro described ubuntu as denoting humanity and morality, and listed group solidarity, compassion, respect, human dignity, conformity to basic norms, and collective unity among its values. Justice Madala said it “permeates the Constitution generally,” carrying humaneness, social justice, and fairness. Justice Langa emphasised communality and interdependence. (Himonga, Taylor and Pope, 2013)

We relied on that review because the ubuntu passages sit in the separate opinions of the original judgment, which we could not read in full here. We name that so you can weigh the account accordingly. What it shows is that a national court treated ubuntu as a standard for how power may treat a person, not only as a warm word.

The Njuri-Ncheke: How Meru Elders Settle Disputes

In central Kenya, the Njuri-Ncheke is the Council of Elders of the Ameru. A 2016 case study by Kirema Mburugu of Embu University College and David Macharia of the University of Nairobi describes headquarters and a shrine at Nchiru market, about 13 kilometers from Meru Town, and roughly 5,000 members across Meru and Tharaka-Nithi counties. The council keeps no membership register, so that figure is an estimate given by two of its leaders. Its structure runs from location committees up to a National Executive Council, with houses in every district. (Mburugu and Macharia, 2016)

The study surveyed 80 council officials, and its findings are perceptions, not outside measurements. Asked how the council handles conflict, respondents named dialogue (92.5%), advice and counseling (87.5%), negotiation (78.75%), instilling discipline (75%), peace crusades (65%), oathing (56.25%), and cursing (31.25%); people could name more than one. Most disputes, the authors report, are heard at the local houses rather than at headquarters. Hearings are open to the public, and parties may call witnesses. (Mburugu and Macharia, 2016)

Respondents credited the council with handling cases quickly (88.75%), being free of corruption (85%), and charging reasonable fees (78.75%). The authors also report free services for the destitute, orphans, and widowers. Because these are officials rating their own institution, we hold them as a picture of how the council understands itself. (Mburugu and Macharia, 2016)

The same respondents named serious limits. Financial problems (88.75%), political interference (86.25%), and the lack of legal mandate (81.25%) topped the list: the council is not registered, so its resolutions cannot be enforced, and the authors say state courts and police sometimes overrule its decisions. Three in four also reported disregard by young people and elites. The paper has its own loose ends, including 85 officials in one table against 80 in the findings, and a headquarters percentage that differs between text and table, so we cite only the figures that are internally consistent. (Mburugu and Macharia, 2016)

The study is also direct about who sits on this council. It calls the Njuri-Ncheke a “men only Council.” Members are elders who completed initiation rites and paid fees, invited in by existing members, and generally noted for brilliance and wealth.

Decisions belong close to the people they touch. Ubuntu Village partners with communities across Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria who are leading their own health and wellbeing.

Karamoja and Teso: Elders’ Arbitration Councils

In northeastern and eastern Uganda, a 2009 report by Chris Chapman and Alexander Kagaha for Minority Rights Group International (the full briefing) describes two councils: the Akiriket among the Karamojong and the Arriget among the Iteso. They handle governance, major decisions, crises, and discipline. (Chapman and Kagaha, Minority Rights Group International, 2009)

In Karamoja, authority runs through age-sets. The eldest set, the Ngimoru, currently governs, with the Ngigetei beneath them. The report notes that power has not passed between age-sets since the 1950s. A village-level tradition called Ameto lets peers punish one another, usually by caning. For killings, both peoples use cleansing and reintegration rituals, and disputes between ethnic groups are settled through negotiation and compensation.

The report’s reasoning is about trust. It finds that formal state mechanisms are “not adequately established” and struggle with current levels of conflict. Karamojong interviewees distrusted the government, citing abuses during the 2007–08 disarmament. Teso interviewees were more likely to see government as a development ally. The formal system was seen as less transparent, but as grounded in equal rights.

The authors do not romanticize the councils. They record that Ameto has weakened, that nepotism and corruption exist, that wealthy people can pay their way out, that elders have lost status, and that compensation may encourage reoffending. For the women and elders who hold Karamojong food knowledge, see the Karamojong women who keep the seed.

Igbo Villages: Talking Until There Is Agreement

Nigeria is in West Africa, and its governance traditions are as varied as its peoples. In a 2020 paper in Odezuruigbo Journal, philosopher Kizito Okoli describes Igbo pre-colonial governance as organized around the umunna, the kindred, with village heads presiding over village assemblies convened at intervals or urgently when needed. (Okoli, 2020)

Before deciding, people gathered to talk until they reached unanimous agreement, a practice the paper calls igba izu, consultation. Decisions of the council of elders also required approval from the general assembly. Age grades, groups organized by age, took on policing and enforcing order, and titled men of integrity formed councils that represented communities to outsiders. (Okoli, 2020)

The paper reads the saying Igbo enwe eze to mean that no single leader held absolute authority, while noting that some towns, including Nri, Onitsha, and Arochukwu, did have an Eze. Okoli’s argument on kingship is mixed, so we rest only on his descriptions of how assemblies worked. For a sacred tree that marked a boundary in Igbo life, see Ogirisi, the Igbo sacred tree.

Rights, Not Romance: Who Sat in the Circle?

Praising Ubuntu governance does not make it fair, and each source we read answers the question of who was included. The Njuri-Ncheke study calls the council men only. Okoli describes adult males as the main participants in Igbo village assemblies. (Okoli, 2020) In Karamoja and Teso, Chapman and Kagaha report that women are excluded from the elders’ assembly because they have not undergone initiation, that women and young adults are presumed to be represented by their husbands or fathers, and that poorer members generally do not attend. Some of the men they interviewed opposed women taking part. (Chapman and Kagaha, Minority Rights Group International, 2009)

A circle that decides together is only as just as the list of people allowed to sit in it. The Minority Rights Group authors say as much in their recommendations: align traditional mechanisms with human rights, find alternatives to corporal punishment, promote women’s roles as chiefs or elders, add an oversight board or appeal process, and set guidelines on which cases belong to traditional justice and which to the formal courts. Reform, in other words, is being proposed from within the research on these institutions.

These are living institutions with real strengths and real limits, not a golden age to return to. When we say “learn from Ubuntu governance,” the lesson is a question to ask of every table, ancestral or modern: who is in the room, and who decided that? Ubuntu’s own premise, that a person is a person through other persons, is the standard that exclusion has to answer to. For how land rights and community power connect, see Cultural Land Management: What the Kaya Forests and Community Stewardship Teach Us and Ballot Betrayal: How Africa’s Votes Are Captured.

A Note on How We Hold This

This article is shared as general information and reflection. It draws on published research and does not describe programs run by Ubuntu Village. Where a source could not be read in full, the text says so. The council surveys report how institutions see themselves, and these institutions vary from place to place and over time.

A Decision Held in Common Is a Stronger Decision.

Ubuntu Village supports community-led health and wellbeing across Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria. When you give, you partner with communities already deciding for themselves.

Sources & Research

• Moyo FL. “I Am Because We Are… Understanding the Concept of ‘Ubuntu’.” Blog post on the University of Jyväskylä website, August 25, 2025.
• Himonga C, Taylor M, Pope A. “Reflections on Judicial Views of Ubuntu.” Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal 16(5), 2013. Read in full; used for how the Makwanyane justices described ubuntu.
• “S v Makwanyane.” Wikipedia. Used for the judgment date (6 June 1995) and the outcome. The ubuntu passages in the original judgment’s separate opinions could not be read in full; the SAFLII text was partly readable.
• Mburugu KN, Macharia D. “Resolving Conflicts using Indigenous Institutions: A Case Study of Njuri-Ncheke of Ameru, Kenya.” International Journal of Science Arts and Commerce 1(4), June 2016. Read in full.
• Chapman C, Kagaha A. “Resolving conflicts using traditional mechanisms in the Karamoja and Teso regions of Uganda.” Minority Rights Group International, 2009. Full briefing read (PDF).
• Okoli KI. “Understanding Republicanism in Igbo Pre-Colonial System of Governance: The Viewpoint to Igbo Enwe Eze.” Odezuruigbo Journal 4(1), 2020, 251–265. Read in full.

Related Reading

• Ballot Betrayal: How Africa’s Votes Are Captured
• Cultural Land Management: What the Kaya Forests and Community Stewardship Teach Us
• Elders as Medicine: Why Intergenerational Wisdom Is the Antidote to Today’s Crises
• What the Market Teaches: Ubuntu Economics and the Informal Exchange Traditions Africa Built
• Before the Granary Was a Statistic: Karamojong Sorghum and the Women Who Keep the Seed
• Ogirisi: The Igbo Sacred Tree That Holds the Boundary Between Worlds

Michele Mitchell is the Founder, President & CEO of Ubuntu Village Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with programs in Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria. A writer, advocate, and community strategist working at the intersection of ancestral wisdom, public health, and community power, Michele leads Ubuntu Village’s work to center communities as the protagonists of their own healing. She writes from the conviction that science and spirit are complementary, that healing is relational, and that community is the medicine. Read more about Michele, or connect with her on LinkedIn.