Indigenous communities in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have been protesting alleged land grabs by some sections of the armed services. At the last count, the Nigerian Airforce and the Navy have been involved in altercations with FCT indigenous communities. The Explainer gathered that the disagreement between the FCT indigenous communities and the two branches of armed services was caused by attempts to take over ancestral lands without statutory compensation. Recently, in Nuwalege community located along the airport road, residents woke up to the strange reality of having their sole access road blocked by the Airforce. It took days of agitation and protest for the tension in the community to subside.
The Explainer learnt that it took the intervention of Comrade Ezikiel Bala, the FCT Representative in the Public Complaints Commission (PCC) to get the alleged land grabbers to address the grievances of the communities. A Whatsapp message on the issue, seen by this medium narrated how marathon meetings with the Airforce led to what looks like a temporary resolution of the land dispute.
The message read: “The Comrade Commissioner painstakingly took time-out to Nuwalege community at the airport road where the Nigerian Airforce allegedly blocked out the community from having access in and out of their community. The Comrade Commissioner engaged the Airforce commander and was able to resolve the issue immediately by granting a permanent access to the communities.” However, while the intervention by the top public servant is not necessarily the end of the community’s travails. There is currently no clarity as to why the Airforce decided to besiege the community and block off its access road in the first place.
This medium learnt that the PCC Commissioner also made a similar stopover in Iddo Sarki, another Indigenous community where residents suddenly discovered that the Nigerian Navy had planted a signpost. The message on the signpost ordered people in the community to vacate the land. Members of the community who spoke to The Explainer expressed shock at the sight of the signpost. While investigation is said to be ongoing on the issue, there is palpable tension in the area because of the directive contained in the signpost. The entire community has been ordered to pack and leave without recourse to any prior discussion.
The situation in the communities has drawn the attention of civil society organizations. Hip City Innovation Centre, a human rights organization advocating for fair and just urban governance described the attempted land grabs as disturbing. In a press statement signed by its Executive Director, Bassey Bassey, the group condemned the attempt by the Nigerian Navy to forcefully dislodge and eject the original inhabitants of their rightful ancestral land.
“The Navy mounted billboards on February 12, 2023, at strategic locations of the community mandating indigenes who have lived there for decades to “Pack and Leave”, without due process, as stipulated by the laws of the Federal Government of Nigeria. We condemn in its entirety this obvious abuse of human rights by a federal government institution.”
Importantly, the group said the Original Inhabitants of Abuja have lived in the area centuries before Nigeria adopted the geographic space as its Federal Capital Territory. “They have maintained their own social, economic, cultural and traditional systems before the FCT came into existence and as such hold customary rights to the land. This fact is backed up by international documents such as the United Nations (General Assembly, 2007) Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People of which Nigeria is a member and the ILO Convention No. 169.”
Subsequently, the group made reference to property rights as enshrined in the 1999 Nigerian constitution. It stressed that Section 44: (1) states that “No moveable property or any interest in an immovable property shall be taken possession of compulsorily and no right over or interest in any such property shall be acquired compulsorily in any part of Nigeria except in the manner and for the purposes prescribed by a law.
It said: “The actions of the Nigerian Navy are a clear case of victimization, intimidation and abuse of power bestowed on them by the Nigerian people whose salaries and emoluments are paid for, by Nigerians, and a violation of the rights of Nigerians living in Iddo Sarki as guaranteed by the Nigerian Constitution and the African Charter on Human and People Rights.” The civic organization therefore rejected what it described as the forced evictions and dispossession of land of the Original Inhabitants in the FCT. It also called on the Navy to ensure respect for the fundamental human rights of the people in the affected communities.
