Moving of Key Parastatals from Abuja to Lagos: Where We Stand

By Richard Inoyo

Since the beginning of that public discourse, Citizens’ Solution Network decided not to comment on the issues knowing clearly that we live in a country where critical thinking is too often uninvited and underutilised in national deliberation.

Today, I have decided to sum up our positions in the following manner:

1. How did Abuja get to become the Federal Capital of Nigeria? Did Nigerians decide or did the military leadership headed by northern elites in the mid-70s decide?

2. Secondly, who told you or my fellow Nigerians that, the centrality of geographical map is the prerequisite for Federal capital creation?

Can someone please tell me how many countries in the over 200+ countries in the world have their capital in the centre of the country?

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3. Thirdly, who told you or any Nigerian that Abuja was the only place we had enough land availability to raise a capital from scratch?

4. On what ground do you consider a plan to drag the Federal seat of power from West to North Central based on tribal hegemony sentiment, neutral?

5. What exactly do you expect Justice Akinola and his Committee organised by Murtala to do other than the premeditated directive of the Commander in Chief?

6. Can or should we say Justice Akinola’s Committee be classified as the equivalent of national consent manufactured from all Nigerians across the various regions based on non-existent referendum or just some military hardline tactics to get a bunch of unarmed 7-man Committee whose goal was to give false legitimacy to the illegal military regime and the questionable tribal-based sentiment to have the seat of power changed from Lagos to Abuja?

8. Lastly, we are foist to say that, if Nigerian citizens ain’t brainwashed and disinformed about what it means to be a citizen, I just don’t see how an illegitimate and unelected junta regime would use illegal decree and the barrel of the gun to assume unconstitutional power to move a Capital away from Lagos.

9. In closing, Tinubu should simply reverse the fraud of the unconstitutional and illegitimate shift of the Federal Capital from Lagos to Abuja by the unelected military elites, even though I have my own issues with the character who is currently being referred to as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, looking at how he emerged and his pro-poverty policies and anti-Nigerian economic posture.

All views expressed in this article are those of Richard Inoyo, Country Director, Citizens’ Solution Network, and not in any way related to those of CONVERSEER, and, or its staff.