Indigenes demand 40 percent of FCT land allocation sales
OIDA President, Pastor Danladi Jeji, stated during the occasion of FCT Indigenes Day held on July 4, 2013 in Abuja. Danladi also called for the creation of additional two Senatorial Districts for the Federal Capital Territory to make it three like other states in Nigeria as well as four additional constituencies to make six like […]
OIDA President, Pastor Danladi Jeji, stated during the occasion of FCT Indigenes Day held on July 4, 2013 in Abuja.
Danladi also called for the creation of additional two Senatorial Districts for the Federal Capital Territory to make it three like other states in Nigeria as well as four additional constituencies to make six like other states.
He said that eleven additional Area Councils should be created in the FCT, adding that the FCT minister should be appointed from FCT indigenous people into the Executive Council of the Federation.
Speaking on the importance of FCT indigenes Day he said, “4th July is a special day in the annals of FCT history as it was the day the Federal Government of Nigeria under the administration of General Olusegun Obasanjo changed the course of our people through a policy of reversal to counter the recommendations by the Justice Akinola Aguda Panel that FCT indigenous people should be totally evacuated from their ancestral lands. The Aguda recommendation was based on the false belief that our people were few in number but when the General Obasanjo-led administration was presented with better demographic facts after a University of Ibadan survey of the FCT, and coupled with the fact that the cost of outright relocation, resettlement and compensation put at about N2.8 billion was too much for the government to bear, the administration had no choice than to change its earlier position by issuing a policy reversal.”
According to him, the reality of that policy reversal affirmed to all Nigerians that there are original inhabitants in the FCT, Abuja and that the Federal Government has not compensated them for their lands meaning that the present Abuja City centre is illegally built in confiscated and uncompensated lands by the Federal Government as the government has not fulfilled section 44 of the 1999 constitution.
Lending his voice at a follow –up rally held in Gwagwalada, General Secretary for Credible Alliance Mr. Emma Ezeazu said that the FCT original inhabitants need a better deal in term of lands compensation and representations in government.