By Sarah NEGEDU
Fifty years after Abuja was carved out as Nigeria’s new capital, the Original Inhabitants of the Federal Capital Territory say the anniversary offers no cause for celebration, insisting that five decades of the city’s growth have come at the expense of its first owners.
At a press briefing in Abuja on Tuesday, the FCT Stakeholders’ Assembly said the Federal Government may be marking progress in architecture and infrastructure, but indigenous communities are marking “systematic dispossession, exclusion, and marginalization.”
The group’s president, Aliyu Daniel Kwali, said the 50-year journey has left deep scars borne from policies that placed development above the rights and dignity of the people found on the land.
“Today marks fifty years since the creation of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. While the Federal Government may today reflect on achievements in urban planning, architecture, and infrastructure development, this anniversary carries a very different meaning for the Original Inhabitants of the FCT.
“For the Original Inhabitants, the past fifty years have been marked not by celebration, but by systematic dispossession, exclusion, and marginalization.”
He said indigenous communities continue to face socio-economic segregation, political exclusion, loss of ancestral lands, forced demolitions, and desecration of cultural and sacred spaces.
“These are not abstract grievances. They are lived realities that distinguish indigenous FCT communities from other citizens of Nigeria, not by choice, but by constitutional and administrative design,” Kwali stated.
The assembly accused the government of a sustained pattern of discrimination, citing Section 42(1) of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom from discrimination, yet fails to protect Original Inhabitants from forced evictions and unequal treatment.
According to the group, communities such as Gishiri, Karsana and Kuchibedna have faced recurrent demolitions “without adequate notice, assessment, compensation, or resettlement,” reinforcing the belief that indigenous settlements remain the primary targets of clearance in the name of development.
Beyond land issues, the Stakeholders’ Assembly also highlighted persistent political exclusion, noting that despite constitutional provisions treating the FCT as a state for administrative purposes, its indigenous people cannot vote or contest in gubernatorial and State House of Assembly elections.
“The FCT remains severely under-represented in legislative structures,” the group said, adding that the federal character principle under Section 14(3) “has been applied in a manner that consistently excludes indigenous FCT citizens from key federal appointments.”
On cultural rights, the assembly accused the government of repeatedly violating ancestral lands, burial grounds, forests and waterways. It argued that such actions contradict international human rights standards, including Article 26 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
To mark the anniversary, the FCT Stakeholders’ Assembly unveiled a charter of demands, calling for land and resettlement justice, constitutional equality, creation of senatorial districts, more federal constituencies, and reclassification of the Area Councils into full local governments.
The stakeholders also demanded the restoration of voting rights in state-level elections and legal protection for sacred sites and traditional institutions.
“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.”
He urged the Federal Government, National Assembly, civil society and the international community to “address these injustices with urgency, fairness, and courage.”
