The Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED) has warned that the Original Inhabitants (OIs) of Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, could face extinction if urgent action is not taken.
Speaking at the 18th Session of the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the United Nations, CHRICED Executive Director, Dr. Ibrahim M. Zikirullahi, said of the indigenous people of Abuja, over two million of them are suffering from land loss, political exclusion, and cultural destruction.
“Today, over two million indigenous people of FCT, Abuja, representing nine tribes and seventeen chiefdoms, face systematic exclusion, land dispossession, political disenfranchisement, and cultural erasure. Without urgent and decisive action, these communities risk extinction,”; he said.
Dr. Zikirullahi explained that their problems began with Military Decree No. 6 of 1976, which took away their ancestral lands to build the nation’s capital.
“Since then, he said, governments have failed to compensate them or recognise their rights, even after Supreme Court rulings in their favour.
“Not even Supreme Court judgments affirming their rights have moved the Nigerian state to honour its obligations,”; he added.
CHRICED said the Original Inhabitants lack basic services such as good healthcare, clean water, and quality education.
“Their traditional ways of life like farming, fishing, and hunting are under threat due to urban development and environmental damage.
“Politically, they are denied fundamental rights. The indigenous people of Abuja cannot elect a governor or state legislature, rendering them stateless in their homeland,”; Zikirullahi said.
CHRICED also stressed the importance of data sovereignty, the right of Indigenous Peoples to control and benefit from information about their communities.
It accused the Nigerian government of failing to collect proper data on the Original Inhabitants, which keeps them invisible in national planning and development.
“Without accurate and inclusive data, the lived realities of Abuja’s Original Inhabitants remain obscured, and their rights continue to be denied. Data is not just a technical tool, it is a vehicle for justice, visibility, and empowerment,”; the CHRICED boss stated.
The organisation urged the UN Expert Mechanism and international partners to put pressure on the Nigerian government to take urgent action.
It called for formal recognition of Abuja’s Original Inhabitants as Indigenous Peoples, their inclusion in political processes such as the right to vote and contest elections, fair access to land, resources, and economic benefits, protection of their cultural heritage and native languages, and recognition of their right to manage and collect data about their communities.
CHRICED said the survival of the FCT’s Original Inhabitants depends on immediate and collective action.
“Development must never come at the cost of dispossession or cultural extinction. Justice delayed is dignity denied,”; Zikirullahi concluded.
