By Sarah NEGEDU
Indigenous communities in the Federal Capital Territory have accused the Federal Government of turning their ancestral homeland into a construction site that erases their identity, declaring that Abuja’s golden jubilee is a celebration built on the ruins of their heritage.
At a press briefing in Abuja on Tuesday, a group known as the FCT Stakeholders’ Assembly, said five decades of Abuja’s development has come with consistent pattern of demolitions, land seizures and destruction of sacred spaces including graveyards of their ancestors.
Such actions, President of the group, Aliyu Daniel Kwali, said amounts to cultural violence against the Original Inhabitants.
According to him, “Over these five decades, the Original Inhabitants of the FCT have borne deep and enduring scars, including socio-economic segregation and political exclusion, loss of ancestral lands and livelihoods. Forced demolitions of homes and community infrastructure
Desecration of cultural sites, burial grounds, and places of worship, persistent poverty imposed by policy, not choice.”
He added that, “The Federal Government has repeatedly desecrated ancestral lands, burial sites, waterways, forests, and sacred spaces in the name of development. Such actions violate not only cultural dignity, but also internationally recognized human rights standards including Article 26 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which affirms indigenous peoples’ rights to land, territory, and resources.”
The assembly alleged that the Federal Government’s approach to development has left communities watching shrines, graveyards and traditional sites flattened, while entire settlements are cleared without compensation or resettlement.
It added that communities such as Gishiri, Karsana and Kuchibedna have become familiar targets in Abuja’s expansion drive.
“Through legislation and administrative action, the Federal Government has imposed restrictions and disabilities on indigenous FCT communities solely because of their identity as Original Inhabitants.
“This pattern has manifested most visibly in forced demolitions, often carried out without adequate notice, assessment, compensation, or resettlement a practice that remains peculiar to indigenous communities within the FCT.
“Communities such as Gishiri, Karsana, and Kuchibedna have suffered such demolitions, reinforcing the perception that development in the FCT continues to occur at the expense of its first inhabitants.”
It argued that the desecration of cultural sites is part of a broader structure of exclusion that has defined the experience of the Original Inhabitants for 50 years from political marginalisation to socio-economic displacement.
Beyond cultural violations, the Assembly accused the Federal Government of “policy-driven poverty,” insisting that indigenous communities have been pushed to the margins of the city they once controlled.
While Abuja celebrates its growth, the Assembly said the Original Inhabitants are still demanding basic recognition of their rights under both Nigerian law and global frameworks, including Article 26 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which protects land ownership and ancestral territories.
To mark the anniversary, the group renewed its charter of demands, calling for the protection of all sacred sites, full recognition of customary land rights and an immediate end to government-backed demolitions affecting indigenous communities.
“As stakeholders and volunteers in the struggle for justice, we are fully aware of the challenges ahead. Yet we remain resolute in our conviction that development must not be built on exclusion, and national unity cannot be sustained where a people are denied dignity in their own homeland.”
Kwali called on the Federal Government, the National Assembly, civil society groups and global partners to intervene and enforce the cultural and territorial rights of Abuja’s first occupants.
