The indigenous people of FCT under the auspices of Abuja Original Inhabitants and Youth Empowerment Organization AOIYEO have called on Nigerian government to bring out the evidence known as Notice of Intention which ceded about 8000qkm2 of land and designated it as FCT.
This was made available to the press in a release signed by the president of the Organisation AOIYEO, commandant Isaac David saying that there was no any Notice of Intention which supposedly and compulsorily acquired the areas designated as Federal Capital Territory that belonged to 858 communities in Abuja.
According to him, “it has been discovered that the expected Notice of Intention which was claimed to have ceded the whole of the land measured 8000qkm2 was no where to be found, meaning that our land was just seized without recourse to the extant laws on compulsory acquisition of land by government.”
He stressed that federal government must come clean over this for the sake of equality and justice, “where on earth, would that kind of flagrant and abuse of the constitution and infringement of human rights would be allowed to happen, so we are asking the government as a matter of urgency to immediately start the search of their archives to proof to us that there was Notice of Intention before our land was compulsorily taken over.”
He claimed that this particular land measuring of about 8000sqkm2 are customary title holders where occupiers of the lands lived as their ancestral homes through their successive generations by virtue of devolution and inheritances under customary law from time immemorial with customary right of occupancy deemed granted.
He continued that the same extant laws stated that prompt payment of adequate compensation is a mandatory prerequisite of any compulsory acquisition as such any purported acquisition made without fulfilling this condition renders such acquisition illegal, unconstitutional, null and void, “thereby acquisition of our land totally contravened the laws”
“Besides illegal acquisition the original Inhabitants of FCT have not been paid adequate compensation therefore we want the federal government of Nigeria which compulsorily takes away our Lands of 8000sqkm2 designated the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja should either by way of monetary compensation for the unexhausted improvements, or a reasonable resettlement.
