CHRICED to UN: Abuja’s Original Inhabitants Face Extinction Without Urgent Government Action

The Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED) has raised an international alarm, warning that the Original Inhabitants (OIs) of Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT), may face extinction if their ongoing marginalization is not urgently addressed.

Speaking at the 18th Session of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, CHRICED Executive Director Dr. Ibrahim M. Zikirullahi said over two million indigenous people, representing nine tribes and seventeen chiefdoms, are at risk due to land dispossession, political disenfranchisement, and cultural destruction.

“Without urgent and decisive action, these communities risk extinction,” Zikirullahi warned.

CHRICED traced the problem to Military Decree No. 6 of 1976, which seized ancestral lands from the OIs to establish Nigeria’s capital.

“Not even Supreme Court judgments affirming their rights have moved the Nigerian state to honour its obligations,” Zikirullahi noted.

Despite legal victories, the OIs continue to lack compensation, recognition, and political representation. CHRICED emphasized that the OIs are effectively stateless in their own homeland, unable to vote for a governor or have a state assembly of their own. 

CHRICED also criticized the absence of basic services like clean water, healthcare, and education. Traditional livelihoods, such as farming, fishing, and hunting, are rapidly disappearing due to unchecked urban development and environmental degradation.

“Development must never come at the cost of dispossession or cultural extinction. Justice delayed is dignity denied,” he said. 

CHRICED urged the UN and international bodies to pressure the Nigerian government to formally recognize Abuja’s Original Inhabitants as Indigenous Peoples, with rights to:

• Vote and contest elections

• Own land and access economic opportunities

• Preserve their languages and cultural heritage

• Manage their own community data (data sovereignty)

“Without accurate and inclusive data, the lived realities of Abuja’s Original Inhabitants remain obscured,” Zikirullahi added.