50 Years of Abuja: Original land owners lament erasure of identity, misery
By Samuel Ogunsona
This Febraury, it is 50 years after Abuja, the Federal Capital was established.
While the city remains Nigeria’s most prestigious land, indigenous people who own the land are crying of half a century of exploitation, seizure of land and human misery.
They see the half centenary anniversary celebration as being a source of regret to over 2million of them now displaced.
The appear conscious about their plight as the Abuja Original Inhabitants (AOIs), whose ancestors owned and lived on the land for centuries before a new capital emerged in 1976, marking a turning point in their history.
The indigenous people gathered together this week in Abuja. They accused the Federal Government of turning their ancestral homeland into a construction site that erases their identity.
“They have a good reason to complain. This land belongs to them. Their forefathers owned the land. The military government took the land at gun point. Little or inadequate compensations were paid”, Fred Ojinika, an official of Network of Journalists on Indigenous Issues, (NEJII) told our correspondent.
He said the Federal Military Government of Nigeria promulgated Decree No. 6 on 4 February 1976 which led to the creation of Abuja adding that the step was taken without consultation with the original land owners.
The President of the FCT Stakeholders’ Assembly, Aliyu Daniel Kwali said
the government’s actions amount to cultural violence against the Original Inhabitants, (OIs).
Over the past 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, and desecration of cultural sites, burial grounds, and places of worship.
The Federal Government’s approach to development has left communities watching as shrines, graveyards, and traditional sites are flattened, while entire settlements are cleared without compensation or resettlement.
The FCT Stakeholders’ Assembly has alleged that the Federal Government has repeatedly desecrated ancestral lands, burial sites, waterways, forests, and sacred spaces in the name of development, violating not only cultural dignity but also internationally recognized human rights standards.
Article 26 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples affirms indigenous peoples’ rights to land, territory, and resources, which the Federal Government’s actions have allegedly disregarded.
Communities such as Gishiri, Karsana, and Kuchibedna have become familiar targets in Abuja’s expansion drive, with forced demolitions often carried out without adequate notice, assessment, compensation, or resettlement.
This practice, the Assembly argues, is part of a broader structure of exclusion that has defined the experience of the Original Inhabitants for 50 years, from political marginalization to socio-economic displacement.
The Assembly has accused the Federal Government of “policy-driven poverty,” pushing indigenous communities to the margins of the city they once controlled. While Abuja celebrates its growth, the Original Inhabitants are still demanding basic recognition of their rights under both Nigerian law and global frameworks.
The Assembly has 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.
“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 said.
