Federal govt to relocate original inhabitants of Abuja in 2015

Original inhabitants of Abuja are to be relocated to their permanent site in 2015, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Federal Capital Territory, Smart Adeyemi, has said.

Mr. Adeyemi stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja on Thursday.

He said that already, districts were being created to ensure the implementation of the relocation next year, adding that the exercise would relieve many of the original inhabitants of some of their problems.

Mr. Adeyemi said efforts were being made to ensure a robust budget allocation for the FCT in 2015.

“In next year’s budget, effort will be made to look at the possibility of providing a good percentage of the revenue allocation for natives to move to their permanent sites.

“Compensation is a serious problem due to the dwindling national revenue, the oil price has not really been too stable.

“And the government is facing so many challenges; so, the allocation to Federal capital Territory has not been quite encouraging.

“That explains why we are coming with a revenue board to look at the possibility of improving the internally generated revenue of the FCT so that they can meet some of these problems.

“By and large, the problem of compensation is the issue of money.

“The FCT is ever expanding, the roads are getting congested. There is need to expand and construct more roads and all these, of course, affect other sectors.

“But I must equally emphasise that the government has done appreciably well in terms of the needs of the indigenous people,” he said.

The lawmaker accused the original inhabitants of selling the estates built for them by the Federal Government.

“I must equally say that some of the estates that have been completed but have been sold by the natives to other Nigerians, making the problem of movement a bit difficult.

“The Garki village, the indigenous people there ought to have moved but the painful thing there is the new site provided by government; the houses there have been completed.

“About 90 per cent of the houses had been completed and sold to other Nigerians by the natives and if you move them, they have no place to lay their heads.’’

Mr. Adeyemi explained that the present administration inherited the problems of the  original inhabitants from  previous military regimes that failed to pay the required compensation to the affected Nigerians.

(NAN)