Any chiefdom anywhere in FCT, Abuja, is an aberration which ought not to be allowed.

This place is FEDERAL CAPITAL TERRITORY and is meant for ALL Nigerians.

The FCT is and remains the Administrative Headquarters of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Even there is nothing like “indigeneship” in FCT which has now crept in through the backdoor!

The 1976 Decree that established FCT following late Justice Akinola Aguda's recommendation for the creation of FCT is clear enough.

The North begged for a centralized FCT for all Nigerians away from Lagos and the South graciously acceded!

Any and all the people laying any claim to ownership in the new FCT were adequately compensated and/or resettled!

It is the oil money from the South that has been and is still being used to develop the FCT!

Can any person here please, point to any developmental contribution to the FCT by the so called chiefdoms created through the backdoor and/or the so called indigenes even without any Act of the National Assembly?

People should please, stop thinking that other people are fools.

If there is any chiefdom created anywhere in FCT, then, all other tribes/ethnic nationalities in Nigeria are entitled to same and be paid like those currently being imposed on other tribes in the FCT!

Let me pause here!

ADDENDUM:

The present FCT was a “barren desert” when it was created by military fiat in 1976 with Decree Number 6 of February 04, 1976 after a nationwide broadcast of February 03, 1976 that announced it by the then Head of State, General Murtala Ramat Mohammed.

Abuja officially became Nigeria's Capital December 12, 1991 after a lot of developmental works had gone into it with the resources from the South.

Only a very few “itinerant pasturist” from today's Niger State and environs were sparsely located within the then new FCT Abuja when it was created and they were either relocated, compensated and/or resettled by the Federal Military Government headed by a northerner!

So, let nobody bamboozle anybody as to whether there weren't people living in the area that became the new FCT Abuja prior to its becoming the FCT.

Let's even assume without necessarily conceding that people lived there prior to it becoming the new FCT, weren't they and/or their people that were clamouring for it? Weren't they rehabilitated and/or settled?

What's even their physical contributions to the development in any sphere of human endeavours to the present day FCT Abuja to now confer ownership on them?

The argument then prior to the creation of the new FCT by the northerners (actually, just a very vocal influential few in authority), was that, Lagos which was the FCT then, was too far for somebody coming from Maiduguri or Sokoto.

They further argued then that Lagos was too congested, too close to the sea which could easily be prone to external attack (as if to say that missiles can't hit their targets anywhere else); and that a central location equidistant from north, south, east and west will be ideal for Nigeria.

Southern Nigeria's money and expertise were then deployed to carry out the survey which birthed FCT, Abuja as the new FCT for Nigeria as desired by the North via a military decree of 1976 of a military regime headed by a Northerner!

Many Nigerians weren’t carried along in the process and there was no plebiscite to affirm the decision of General Murtala Ramat Mohammed's short lived military regime to create a new FCT away from Lagos.

Even when the late Yoruba leader, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, queried the impropriety and wasteful expenditure in relocating the FCT from Lagos and stressed that it was not a national priority project then, he was quickly “demonized” as hater of the North.

Not a few argued that Chief Awolowo’s refusal to support the relocation of FCT from Lagos to anywhere else and his earlier condemnation of the ill-fated population census carried out by the military regime of General Yakubu Gowon, which allocated very high numbers to the North against the South contrary to well known facts including topography, may have contributed in no small measures in frustrating Chief Awolowo's presidential ambition in 1979.

Now certain aberrations are becoming crystal clear in the Federal Capital Territory Abuja!

1. Backdoor introduction of indigeneship instead of citizenship in the FCT Abuja.

2. Diabolical and secret allocations of lands in the FCT in favour of a particular section of the country as against even allocation of lands to all States of the Federation as was been done initially when FCT was a “virgin” land. Other people developed the FCT and some people who contributed nothing to the development of the barren desert which was named FCT are now appropriating the land to themselves.

3. Despite the fact that oil money and taxes from the South were used to develop FCT Abuja from the very beginning to date by the southerners, no southerner has ever been allowed to become a substantive Federal Minister for FCT Abuja since 1976 to date.

So, what's now “federal” about the FCT Abuja?

4. Contrary to the history of the creation of FCT Abuja, some people are now clamouring to have a Mayor for FCT Abuja and I ask, where is that coming from?

Mayor by who, to who and for who?

Nigeria is not a jungle where anything and/or everything goes as is being presently practiced or being made to look like.

Some people fought for the independence of this country Nigeria. This fact must never be allowed to be lost on us!

The South have been carrying the burdens of this country for far too long without any form recompense. This should not be acceptable to any rational human being.

Let FCT Abuja remain for ALL Nigerians as originally conceived in a “restructured Nigeria” as originally envisioned by the founding leaders of the country Nigeria.

Nigeria is destined great by God Almighty!

So, what God Almighty has put together, let no mortal being put asunder!

Dare it and dare The Most High God Almighty!

•Echefuna' R. G. ONYEBEADI, Emeritus Professor is Fellow of United Nations and The Inegbese of Oligbo Kingdom.

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