President Bola Tinubu has no plans to relocate Nigeria’s capital from Abuja to Lagos, Southwest Nigeria, the Presidency has categorically stated.
It defended the relocation of some departments of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) Corporate headquarters to Lagos, the commercial nerve centre of Nigeria.
ChatNews TV reports that on Monday that Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) kicked against President Tinubu’s approval for the relocation of the headquarters of the FAAN and some CBN departments from Abuja to Lagos.
The national publicity secretary of the forum, Prof. Muhammad Baba, described the move as a deliberate plot against the Northern region.
Noting that Northerners will be affected by the spontaneous exercise, the group said that CBN’s decision, rather than being a normal administrative action to fix some logistics problem, was a disturbing pattern of antagonistic actions often taken by certain federal government agencies against the interests of the North and other parts of the country.
But reacting to the outburst of the forum and other northern groups, the Special Adviser on Information and Strategy to the President, Bayo Onanuga, debunked the insinuations, adding that President Tinubu has no plans to move the Federal Capital to Lagos.
Onanuga in a statement posted on his X handle, described those peddling such rumours as “dishonest, ethnic and regional champions,” who according to him were trying to draw attention to themselves.
Onanuga said many parastatals are not based in Abuja depending on their mandate, insisting that administrative decisions should not be politicised.
The statement partly read: “President Tinubu has no plan whatsoever to move the Federal Capital to Lagos. The rumour first surfaced during the campaign last year by opponents looking for all manners of weapons to stop him. We trashed it.
“Those peddling it anew are dishonest, ethnic and regional champions, trying to draw attention to themselves. Abuja has come to stay. It is backed by law.
“The movement of FAAN, a department of Aviation Ministry to Lagos, where it was based before former minister Hadi Sirika moved it to Abuja during the last administration, does not amount to moving the FCT to Lagos.
“The administrative move should have attracted scant attention, as Lagos is the commercial capital and the hub of aviation business in Nigeria. FAAN should be nowhere else but near the industry it regulates. FAAN will still maintain some presence in Abuja, as it is not a wholesale movement.
“Similarly, the movement of some departments of the CBN to Lagos should not trigger any hoopla. The departments concerned, including the bank supervision department, are those dealing with commercial banks, all with headquarters in Lagos. A regulator ought to be close to the businesses it regulates.
“All those pushing this campaign of falsehood know they are playing politics, albeit a dangerous politics to pit the North against the South.
“There are many parastatals that are not based in Abuja depending on their mandate. NIMASA is in Lagos. So is NPA. National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) is in Lokoja, not Abuja. Will the people opposing the movement of FAAN and some CBN departments want those agencies to be in Abuja, where there is no single port and no maritime activity?
“Administrative decisions should not be politicized. Let it not look like whenever we are temporarily not at the helm of affairs, we create all manners of dangerous rumours to distract from the bigger picture and emasculate an administration led by a southerner.
“Let’s stop the dirty politics. We can’t be playing politics with everything.”
