By Aideloje Ojo
Minna
Niger state Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello, has demanded for the establishment of FCT-Niger Development Commission to address infrastructure and social challenges occasioned by the movement of the nation’s seat of power to Abuja, 40 years ago.
He made the demand yesterday when he received the report on the settlement and compensation matters of land ceded to the federal government to build the country’s new Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in 1976 in Minna.
Niger state alone ceded almost 70 per cent of the land size of the current FCT and the name – Abuja.
The governor complained that 40 years after initiating the FCT project, the establishment of FCT-Niger Development Commission, a prototype of Niger-Delta Development Commission, for the development of the affected communities was yet to come to fruition.
He said: “If the FCT-Niger Development Commission has been in place, all these infrastructural, social and economic challenges being faced by these communities and by extension the state government would have been addressed substantially.
“Today, 60 per cent of the people living in Suleja town alone work in Abuja. They overstretched our facilities without any compensation or support from the federal government. The same plight befalls other communities affected by the Federal Capital.”
He also frowned on the failure of the federal government to fulfil all the promises made to the state in terms of infrastructure development of the affected communities since 1976.
Bello cited the construction of a rail line to link Minna, the state capital, with the FCT, in view of the existing rail network with other parts of the country in the state.
He said the ceding of parts of the state for the seat of government brought untold hardship to communities that had to leave their ancestral homes and also increased pressure on the available government infrastructure and other social amenities available in the resettled communities.
“Land is our own resource control, we must protect it and, as a government, we would also fight for what is legitimately due to the people, our people must get justice, the Governor added.
He mandated the committee to liaise with Nasarawa and Kogi states in the pursuance of mutually beneficial goals, by setting up a joint commission on resettlement and compensation matters.
The committee has General Idris Garba (retd) as its chairman, while the office of the Secretary to the State Government would provide the secretary.
