State Matters

FCT's original inhabitants demands a say
Why some FCT residents want a state

Abuja original inhabitants want FCT to become a state. Tunde Akpeji finds out why this matters to them.

Residents of the glimmering city of Abuja were treated to a strange sight recently: half-naked men and women protesting for a cause. The city is getting used to regular protests, especially around the Three Arms Zone. But, with a lot of skin on display, this had a different colour. The protesters, however, were not nudists. They were members of the Original Inhabitants Development Association, (OIDA), who decided to use their traditional way of life as one of the tools to press for change.

The change they desire could save the cultural heritage of the Gbagyi, Gwari, Gade, Ganagana, Gwandara, Bassa, Ebira, Koro and Mama indigenous groups that originally inhabited the area now covered by the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). But they had more than culture in their sight. Among other political and economic demands, they want to enjoy the same rights as other Nigerians, particularly the benefits that go with “coming from somewhere”. They want an elected mayor for Abuja and they want a state of their own, according to the charter of demands they submitted to the constitution review committees of the National Assembly.

Pastor Jeji Danladi, the President of OIDA, noted that some of these demands would not have arisen if the content of the broadcast of the late military Head of State, General Murtala Mohammed on February 3, 1976 had been implemented. For him, the failure of successive administrations to implement the founding concept of FCT has put the original inhabitants at a disadvantage as they lost the right to their land and have not been fully relocated and compensated.

Their demands also highlighted a failure to adhere to the original timeline for developing the nation’s capital. The concept announced in February 1976 would have had the original inhabitants relocated elsewhere at an estimated cost of N2.8 billion at that time. The failure to implement this in addition to the startup of the capital city in 1980 instead of the recommended 1986 saw indigenous groups become squatters in the city that grew around their ancestral homes.

According to Pastor Danladi, it is now challenging to implement the original concepts. Abuja indigenes would not be accepted anywhere if they were to be relocated in this contemporary time of controversial land ownership. One of their suggestions is to allow the 2000sq kilometers covered by the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) and part of Bwari Area Council, or the same area captured in the Abuja Master Plan, to exist as the Federal Capital while the remainder of the territory becomes a state with all the political instruments.

OIDA, supported during the protests by the Alliance for Credible Elections (ACE), wants the area covered by the Federal Capital City to come under the administration of an elected Mayor. The group wishes that the rest of the FCT becomes a state with its capital in Gwagwalada. The envisioned state would have its governor, three senatorial districts, five federal constituencies, its judiciary and a legislative arm— “Peoples’ Assembly of the FCT”—to take over the functions presently performed by the National Assembly. The group also wants the existing six area councils increased to eleven and designated as local government areas.

In a demand reminiscent of the agitation for resource control, the group also wants the Federal Government to remit 20% of all revenue from allocable lands and 40% of land within Abuja city to be allocated to original inhabitants. Of equal concern to them is the fact that streets in Abuja are named after foreign leaders, rivers, cities and countries without any acknowledgement of the people who owned the land before the Federal Government took it over. For a start, OIDA asked that streets be named after their nine ethnic groups and after persons whom they hold as heroes.

In demanding for a state, they are not just following the current fad, according to Pastor Danjuma. A state, he said, would have practical implications for his people. He disclosed that while the Constitution specifies that the FCT should be treated as a state and despite the concept of Federal Character, the original inhabitants cannot be appointed as permanent secretaries, ministers or selected in some other capacities. “Even if they would not give us a state, they should at least change these aspects of the Constitution that makes us into nobodies,” he said.

The traditional institution representing the nine distinct groups in the territory would equally enjoy what its counterpart in the 36 other states enjoy when it is brought under the ministry of local government and chieftaincy affairs. It presently reports to a department of the FCDA, which Danladi said constitutes an anomaly.

Some members of OIDA also believe that their present status makes them outcasts of sort. “It is a stigma,” said Giwa Bameyi, an official of the group. “My seven-year child was asked in his class what state he hailed from and he said FCT. They all laughed at him that Abuja is a no-man’s land. He came back home crying.”