Abuja residents protest alleged land takeover by Navy

Natives and residents of the Iddo-Sarki community along the Airport Road, Abuja on Monday, protested against the alleged taking over of their ancestral land and forceful eviction from their homes by the Nigerian Navy.

City & Crime reports that the protesters, who marched in their hundreds, including commercial cyclists to the airport expressway, carried placards with inscriptions “Our land is not for Navy Barracks,” The Navy should park and leave our land,” “Iddo people are Nigerians not foreigners,” among others.

Speaking on behalf of the protesters, Mr Bulus Tanko, said both natives and residents of the community decided to come together to protest the moves by the Navy to take over their land and ancestral homes.

He said the natives had been residing in the community before the creation of the FCT, wondering why the Navy came to the community and mounted signposts asking them to leave the village. He said it was frustrating that the Navy asked natives and residents to leave their community without any prior notice.

“It is obvious that the Land Use Act has stated clearly that before you can collect land from someone, it should be only when it comes to overriding of public interest. That is, the government wants to do something beneficial on such land that will be of benefit to the general public and it is only the FCT administration that should be responsible to allocate such land for a specific purpose,” he said.

Also speaking, the youth leader of the community, Abdulbasit Adamu, said many residents of the area had been apprehensive and having sleepless nights since the Navy came to mount vacation signposts in the community.

He said many residents have been relocating from the community, saying there was a need for President Bola Tinubu and the FCT minister, Nyesom Wike to intervene in the matter.

“We have no other place to go than this community, Iddo-Sarki, which our forefathers founded even before Nigeria’s independence, but today, the Nigerian Navy is asking us to vacate the community for them,” he said.