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Special Report: 40 Years Of Robbery, Say Natives. by Sunjos: 11:02pm On Feb 04, 2016 |
By FRED ITUA
Exactly 40 years ago today, the military
government of Nigeria created the Federal
Capital Territory through the enactment of the
FCT Decree No. 6 of 1976, today called the FCT
Act.
A lot of provisions were made and foundation
findings documented by the Akinola Aguda
Panel of 1975 that provided for the number of
persons that would be affected in the
relocation and revocation of lands. The plans
also included how to and how much they
would be compensated with for their lands to
be taken.
While one leg of the implementation that has
to do with taking over of lands and
development has taken place effectively, the
aspect of compensation and proper relocation
and resettlement of natives remains in paper.
These years later, the natives who knew of
the plans and procedures of the takeover in
law still fume that the whole episode to take
over their land has been fraud.
It is only few that argue that beyond non-
compensation for their lands, the incident has
been some blessing to the development of the
area and the people.
The long walk to the creation of Abuja as
Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT) began
in 1976, with the military regime of Gen.
Murtala Muhammed. The regime had decided
that Lagos, which was then Nigeria’s capital,
had become too over-crowded as both political
and commercial capital of Nigeria.
Consequently, Gen. Muhammed on August
9th,1975, set up a committee headed by Dr.
Akinola Aguda to advice the government on
the suitability of Lagos to continue to play
the role of Nigeria’s capital, as well as a new
location suitable to replace Lagos as the
nation’s capital. Dr. Aguda committee who
toured Nigeria for this purpose, recommended
Abuja as a suitable replacement as Nigeria’s
capital.
On July 6th, Gen. Muhammed promulgated
the decree No 6 of 1976 making Abuja
Nigeria’s new capital. Although the new FCT
was created in 1976, physical development of
the territory only began in 1980. This is
despite the earlier establishment of the
famous Parastatals, Federal Capital
Development Authority (FCDA) in 1976,
charged with the responsibility of the design
and development of the new capital, after
setting a 15 years target for the phased,
movement of the seat of government.
The pioneer administrator of the FCT, Mr
Mobolaji Ajose Adeogun immediately embarked
on a massive recruitment of town planners,
architects, engineers and other professionals
for the FCDA. In 1976, the infant FCDA started
out in Lagos and within a year, it opened an
office in Kaduna, nearer to city. And by 1978,
when surveys of the territory had reached an
advance stage getting ready for physical
development, FCDA transferred its headquarter
to Suleja town. The administrator and all the
senior staff of FCDA who lived and worked in
mobile caravans in an open field base on the
outskirts of the town moved also.
On the 12 of December, 1991 President
Ibrahim Babangida signed the Decree formally
declaring Abuja as the new FCT of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria. He boarded a presidential
Plane and made the historic one hour journey
to Abuja. He was received at the city gates by
ministers, the diplomatic corps, civil servants
and other prominent Nigerians. After a
colourful ceremony at the city gates, he was
conveyed in a convoy to the new seat of
government at the valley by the foot of Aso
Rock.
This is to bring to an end a planed 15 years
movement of the seat of power from Lagos to
Abuja from 1976 to 1991. Nigeria joined the
league of countries that had built new
capitals such as the United States of America
that transferred from New York to Washington
DC, Brazil from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia,
Australia from Melbourne to Canberra and few
others.
Despite all these, there was one nagging issue
and that was the resettlement of original
inhabitants of FCT. The spirit of Decree No 6
of 1975 by Gen. Mohammed was that the
original settlers in Abuja were to be
compensated and relocated to the adjoining
states to the new FCT. However, in 1978, the
government of Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo saw
the assessment of N2.8 billion estimated for
the compensation of the original settlers
before their relocation out of the New FCT as
too big for government to pay.
Instead, Obasanjo decided that such amount
was better spent on infrastructural
development of the FCT. President Shehu
Shagari who came to power in 1979, tried to
effect the compensation and relocation policy
by setting up a site in Plateau state to
relocate the indigenous people of Karu in FCT
as the first test case. Only a few family from
Karu benefited and were relocated to the new
site that became known as NEW Karu.
While the majority of people in Karu were
waiting for their compensation and relocation,
the federal government then said there was no
more money to continue the compensation
and resettlement policy. What became clear
was that the federal government had
administratively decided on total, but gradual
evacuation of the original settlers of the FCT
as development approaches each village and
settlement.
Forty years after the creation of the territory,
the original settlers are still gnashing their
teeth. Yunusa Ahmadu Yusuf, Secretary-
general Of Abuja Original Inhabitants Youths
Organization believes that successive
administrations of the territory, as well the
federal government have not been fair to their
plight.
“We the Abuja Original Inhabitants Youths
Organization, are an Organization with the
mandate of the original inhabitants (Gbagyi,
Gbari, Gade, Ganagana, Amwamwa, Bassa,
Egbira, Gwandara and Koro) of Abuja in
particular and FCT in general,” he said.
“Our sole aim is the of protection of our
rights and the interests on our land and its
resources, as they relate to property
protection, identity, utilization of
empowerment opportunities, environmental
protection, preservation of our rich cultural
heritage, safety of lives and property,
education and sensitization on government
programmes, mineral resources and other
policies of government,” he added.
Speaking on the importance of land and what
it means them, Yusuf said: “To us, the
Original Inhabitants of Abuja, land represents
the future. land represents wealth. It
represents health, freedom and everything. It
is land that makes a people a community.
Can anyone imagine what the consequences
will be if communities in the Niger Delta are
deprived of their lands in the manner it is
meted out to the Original Inhabitants of the
FCT? People will do everything including
supreme sacrifice to defend their ancestral
land. God created the land and out of land,
God created man.
“Few months ago, our people defied bullets
from the police when they protested the
demolition of their settlements and
acquisition of their land perpetrated by land
racketeers. The people of Abuja are known for
farming and crafts-making. But with the
coming of the Federal Capital Territory to
Abuja, our people have been deprived of their
farm lands.
“Due to the activities of the FCTA
environmental enforcement agents, our
mothers, these days, can no longer hawk
their farm produce harvested from the
remaining parcels of land waiting to be taken
by the takers.
“Our mothers and youths who hawk food and
snacks are now seen and treated as
environmental nuisance who are routinely
molested with seizures and destruction of
their wares by the environmental enforcers.
Yet, there are never any sustainable measures
put in place to engage them in gainful
employments.
“While other states in Nigeria are sending
over 500 students overseas for sound
education and training, the FCT Scholarship
Board is poorly funded. Consequently, our
youths who are willing and are qualified for
such training are handicapped and stranded.
Those in some institutions here in Nigeria are
perennially awaiting sponsorship.
“The FCT indigenous slots for employments in
the Federal Civil Service are being taken by
non-Indigenes through illegal activities. We
are calling on all well-meaning Nigerians to
join the advocacy of Abuja Original
Inhabitants to let the government look into all
the injustices to which we have, for too long,
been subjected to. It is at the interest of
peaceful co-existence and stability for our
plight to be positively addressed.” |
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