Every morning, Baba Natha brings out a small clay pot containing ashes of past sacrifices and a calabash with three kola nuts and a sprinkle of guinea corn. He kneels on the concrete floor of his bungalow in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, and speaks in whispers to ancestors he believes now hear him from afar.
“They are far from us now,” the 56-year-old says. “The development has brought too much noise and too many strangers. They have taken our gods away.”
He is one of the last remaining elders in Lugbe, a suburb in the capital, who still remembers the full liturgy of Ashnagba, the ancient monotheistic religion of the indigenous people of what is now the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
At the heart of this traditional system is Shekwoi, the supreme being whose name combines “Oshe” (heaven, the firmament, the heights) and “kwokwoi” (ancient, pre-existing; that which was there before).
But when the bulldozers and surveyors came and marked ancestral lands for demolition to make Abuja Nigeria’s new capital, they swept the gods away, beginning a wave of loss that would erase sacred sites and scatter communities across the territory.
For the indigenous people, Abuja’s development did more than displace communities—it disrupted a spiritual system rooted in the land itself, where gods are tied to specific trees, rocks, and groves.
Sacred land
Natha’s forefathers served as Ashigbeda [medicine man or woman], communicating with the spirits of the groves. The loss of their spiritual essence remains the people’s most painful realization.
“We had our shrines, trees, and stones that our forefathers worshipped. But later, roads were constructed, sacred sites were destroyed, and even our graves disappeared in the wake of the development,” said Chief Umaru Usman, the Takachi [village head] of Guidna, a Gbagyi community now absorbed into the Abuja suburbs. Gbagyi is one of the nine ethnic groups of the original inhabitants.
“There was no compensation for the shrine. They calculated compensation for houses, for crops, and for trees that had economic value. But what value do you place on a god?”
Natha says the pain hits harder because the Shekwoi deities are not abstract beings who can be worshipped anywhere. They are tied to specific rocks, trees, hills, and groves.
“You cannot approach Shekwoi directly but through the ashna, the deities who dwell in specific places,” he says. “Shekwoi is not like the God of the Christian missionaries.”
Recollecting an oral tradition, he remembers how this traditional religion looked in his youth in the 1970s, when people traveled long distances seeking spiritual help for problems such as infertility, failing crops, and persistent misfortune.
“There was a time in Lugbe when bulldozers were brought to destroy a huge tree that we worshipped,” he says. “A few hours after they destroyed it, intending to come back the following day to continue road construction, they found the tree standing again.”
Whether the story is literally true matters less than what it reveals: the belief that the spirits could not be so easily displaced. For elders who tell it today, the tree’s return was proof that the gods would resist, even if, in the end, they lost.
That loss did not happen gradually; it began with a single political decision
How the bulldozers arrived
On February 3, 1976, through Decree No. 6, the military government of General Murtala Muhammed moved Nigeria’s capital from Lagos to Abuja. The decree carved approximately 8,000 square kilometers from Niger, Plateau, Nasarawa, Kwara, and Kaduna states to form the new capital.
Nine ethnic groups were affected: Gbagyi (Gwari), Gbari, Amwamwa, Bassa, Egbira (Ebira Koto), Gade, Ganagana, Gwandara, and Koro.
As development expanded, most of these indigenous people were relocated from their ancestral lands to designated locations like Kubwa Village to make way for business districts, legislative quarters, highways, and luxury homes.
The people did not consent to the move, especially knowing the implication for their spiritual essence. But the FCT Act of 1976 nullified customary land rights, treating ancestral territory as vacant government land. This meant sacred sites had no legal standing and were obstacles to development.
Zuma Rock, the massive monolith looming over the Abuja-Kaduna road, is one of the still-existing sacred symbols of the local religion. Gbagyi oral tradition holds that the rock was used as a defensive retreat during intertribal wars and was believed to house a powerful deity. When a king died, his spirit would travel there, and women and children were forbidden from approaching except by priests at certain times.
But today, Zuma Rock is a tourist attraction, depicted on the 100 naira note, with tourists photographing it from highway rest stops and vendors selling drinks and snacks at its base. The sacred groves that once surrounded it have been cleared for development.
While bulldozers reshaped the land, new religions began to shape the people.
What Islam and Christianity could not do, development did
Islam was the first to reach the region in the 19th century, spreading quickly because its practices, such as polygamy, divination, and the use of protective amulets, aligned with existing traditions. Christianity followed in the 20th century via visiting missionaries.
Still, as long as the indigenous sacred groves and shrines stood and Abuja remained unattractive to large populations, Islam and Christianity never fully displaced old loyalties until Abuja’s designation as the federal capital.
Immediately after that designation, there was an influx of Muslims and Christians from other parts of the country, influencing the original inhabitants through land allocations.
The younger generation of the indigenous people soon started following these new religions. The people lost not only their spiritual essence but also their language and art as they scattered.
Many elders have refused to abandon Ashnagba, still relying on it for protection against evil forces.
Preserving what’s left
Amid continuous waves of demolitions, the people are now trying to preserve what is left of their heritage and spirituality, beginning with the reintroduction of the indigenous language and systems to the younger people that are fast forgetting their roots.
“We are trying to identify with our local names, including the names of the original places. Also, we are training people to start using the language development system. FCT has all the nine language councils, and we are saying that our language should be in print,” said Pastor Danladi Deji, president of the Original Inhabitant Development Association of the FCT.
Meanwhile, these days, every time Chief Umaru visits the 725-meter-high Zuma Rock and watches tourists photograph the rock and vendors sell drinks around its revered monolith, a new pain hits him.
“It is sad that there will be no mention of the gods and no offerings at the groves that remain,” he said.