A coalition of youth organisations under the aegis of the FCT Mandate Restoration Group has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to assign the Ministry of Federal Capital Territory to a native.
Spokesperson of the group, Hajiya Zainab Umar Marafa, in a statement, said it should be assigned to an illustrious indigene, Zephaniah Jisalo, who was one of the ministerial nominees.
She noted that making Jisalo Minister of the FCT would go a long way to correct several years of injustice and marginalisation of the indigenous people of the FCT.
Hajiya Zainab stated that the original owners/indigenes of the FCT should be given their rightful positions in the scheme of things to avoid the looming danger of youth restlessness, agitation, confrontation and militancy in the territory.
It will be recalled that the indigenous people of the FCT under the umbrella of the Original Inhabitants Association of Abuja, OIDA, had appealed to President Tinubu to appoint Zaphaniah Jisalo as FCT minister and commended him for breaking the jinx in nominating a native as cabinet minister.
In a statement, the OIDA President, Pastor Danladi Jeji, through his spokesman, Sumner Shagari Sambo, suggested that the FCT minister’s portfolio should be rotated to other geopolitical zones under the present dispensation in case it was not feasible by the president’s calculation.
He argued that the last time a ministerial nominee was appointed from among the FCT indigenes was under the military government of General Ibrahim Babangida, whom he said appointed Major General Abdullahi Bagudu Mamman as Minister of Internal Affairs between 1990 and 1991.
