The special adviser to the president on information and strategy, Bayo Onanuga says the federal government has no plans to relocate the federal capital back to Lagos.
Onanuga said in a statement that “mischief-makers, bent on fueling needless ethnic mistrust, have deliberately misinterpreted the decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria to relocate its Department of Banking Supervision to Lagos and the directive of the Ministry of Aviation and Aerospace Development that the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria(FAAN) should relocate its head office back to Lagos.”
He said the presidency considers it necessary to inform Nigerians that there is no iota of truth in the interpretations given to the directives in some quarters and the unfounded claims and rumours that President Bola Tinubu is planning to relocate the Federal Capital back to Lagos.
These rumours, he said which first surfaced during the electioneering campaign last year, was sponsored by political opponents looking for all manners of weapons to prevent Asiwaju Tinubu from being elected as president by a section of the country.
According to him the status of Abuja as the Federal Capital has come to stay. It is backed by law.
The movement of FAAN, an agency of Aviation Ministry, to Lagos, where it was located before former Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, moved it to Abuja during the last administration, does not amount to moving the Federal Capital to Lagos.
The administrative move should have ordinarily attracted scant attention, as Lagos is the commercial capital and the hub of aviation business in Nigeria. FAAN will still maintain some presence in Abuja. It is not a wholesale movement.
Similarly, the movement of the Department of Banking Supervision of the CBN to Lagos should not trigger any discord within the polity. The department concerned deals with commercial banks, almost all of which have their headquarters in Lagos.
(Editor: Nkoli Omhoudu)
