World Indigenous Peoples Day: CHRICED Stands in Solidarity with Abuja Original Inhabitants

Every year, August 9th is recognized as the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, a significant occasion established by the United Nations to honor the rights, accomplishments, and contributions of indigenous communities across the globe. The Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED) stands in solidarity with the international community in celebrating the profound cultural diversity, resilience, and contributions of indigenous peoples, who have endured historical injustices, displacement, and marginalization. We particularly acknowledge the Abuja Original Inhabitants of the Federal Capital territory (FCT), who, faced decades of forced evictions, land appropriation, and socio-economic and cultural dislocation. We acknowledge their ongoing struggles for land rights, self-determination, and the preservation of their cultural heritage, and we honour their steadfast resistance and resilience in the face of numerous challenges.

CHRICED takes this opportunity to express our unwavering support and solidarity with indigenous peoples worldwide in their pursuit of justice, equality, and human rights. We acknowledge the vital contributions they make to the preservation of biodiversity, the safeguarding of natural resources, and the fight against climate change. We recognize the disproportionate effects of environmental degradation and climate change on indigenous communities and are committed to supporting their initiatives and advocacy efforts.

To the Abuja Original Inhabitants, who have endured over four decades of marginalization, we affirm that your pursuit of justice in reclaiming your political, economic, and cultural rights, which have been persistently undermined by the Nigerian state, is not in vain. We wish to emphasize our commitment to collaborating with you to amplify your voices and perspectives; to support programs and projects in advocating for policies and legislation that uphold the rights and interests of the Abuja Original Inhabitants; and to work alongside organizations and communities of Abuja Original Inhabitants to tackle climate change and environmental injustices, among other essential areas of intervention.

As we reflect on this year’s theme of “Protecting the rights of Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and Initial Contact”, CHRICED calls on the Federal government of Nigeria to fulfill its constitutional and moral responsibilities to the Indigenous people of Abuja, who despite decades of marginalization and deprivation have remain peaceful and law-abiding. We call on the government to expedite action in ensuring that Abuja Original Inhabitants enjoy full political representation and participation like other indigenous peoples from other parts of the country. To this effect, we vehemently demand that an urgent constitutional amendment process be set in motion to ensure that all political structures as obtained in the other 36 states of the federation are also put in place in Abuja, which is also recognized as a state in the Nigerian federation by the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and severally affirmed by the Nigerian courts.

CHRICED also calls on the United Nations, local and international NGOs and development partners, the media and well-meaning Nigerians to join in the campaign for the enforcement of the social, political, economic, cultural and environmental rights of the indigenous people of Abuja, Nigeria’s federal capital city. Together, we can build a more just and equitable world that values the dignity, contributions, and rights of all peoples!

Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria, long live the Abuja Original Inhabitants.