Abuja Inhabitants Demand End To Inequality

As Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT) turned 50 on Tuesday, the original inhabitants of Abuja have called for a constitutional reform to remove provisions they say institutionalise inequality between them and other Nigerians.

During a press conference in Abuja, the FCT Stakeholders’ Assembly, led by its president, Dr. Aliyu Daniel Kwali, said indigenous residents of the capital were being denied full citizenship by the very document meant to guarantee their rights.

“The Constitution, in its current form, contains clauses that treat us as lesser Nigerians. While it recognizes the FCT as a state in one section, it denies us the political rights of statehood in practice. This is not an oversight, it is a structural injustice that must be corrected,” he said.

The demands came against the backdrop of what they describe as five decades of systematic dispossession, exclusion, and marginalisation since the FCT’s creation on February 3, 1976.

Kwali highlighted Section 299 of the 1999 Constitution, which states that the FCT shall be treated as if it were a state, yet fails to grant its indigenous residents the corresponding political rights.