Three years ago, precisely on August 14, 2008, 11.00am, Nigerian government handed over Bakassi Peninsular to Cameroon following a ruling by the the International Court of Justice at the Hague, The Netherlands. The victims of that singular action have gone through the toil of living like aliens in their own lands following failed government promises to resettle them, at Ikang, the New Bakassi in Apabuyo local government area of Cross River State. They look up to President Goodluck Jonathan to take up their matter with the same seriousness as the amnesty programme. EDEM EDEM writes in from Calabar.
It is exactly three years since the relocation of the Bakassi returnees to the New Bakassi estates. Since that day (August 14, 2008), there have been mixed feelings of sadness and hope at the camp. The returnees, who lost their ancestral home following the ceding of the Bakassi peninsular by Nigeria to Cameroun in 2008 after the International Court of Justice‘s verdict, say the decision was painful.
But despite the pain of losing their homeland, they are hopeful that the federal government would fulfill its promise of resettling them and giving them a new lease of life. However, the returnees, who fled the peninsular following continuous harassment by Cameroonian gendarmes, claim that since the government was yet to fulfill its promise, they now battle with hunger and hardship.
The secretary, Bakassi Returnees Resettlement Forum, Mr. Victor Asuquo Duncan, a native of Akwa Ibom State, regrets leaving the land of his fathers.
“I grew up there. By the time we were there, they handed over Bakassi to Cameroon, hence the Nigerian Government asked us to come back home with a lot of promises. We were accommodated by the Cross River State Government. Compared to where we were, life here is difficult; difficult not in terms of accommodation, because accommodation is a little bit OK, but in terms of our livelihood, because we cannot go out and do fishing again. We doing nothing,” he laments.
Asuquo, who says the returnees are starving, warns that unless practical steps are taken by the government to tackle humanitarian crisis arising from the 2008 handing over of the peninsular, Nigerians in the area would face extinction. He wonders why it has taken the government a long time to seek a permanent solution to the plight of its natives, who were evicted from their ancestral home and subjected to intimidation, torture and killing by the gendarmes. He says it is embarrassing that in a country where many political office holders receive jumbo pay, returnees, who are victims of the federal government’s political decision are yet to have a fair deal.
To be able to feed, he says, the returnees have been converted to casual farm workers, who would occasionally go to weed, pick palm fruit and harvest other farm products in exchange for a fee of between N200 and N500. Asuquo claims that with continuous dilly-dallying over their resettlement, the returnees have lost hope and sense of belonging, as fishing, their means of livelihood, is no longer feasible. While appealing for daily feeding allowance, he acknowledges that the state government, through the Cross River State Emergency Management Agency, had some months ago brought relief materials, including food items, to the returnees.
He also confirms that the state government had, for some months, paid N5,000 to each family of the returnees to cater for the childre’s education. But Asuquo says the intervention, though commendable, is not enough, noting that nothing could be more appropriative than an adequate and proper resettlement. Pending the resettlement, he says, the government should guarantee daily feeding allowance for the returnees in order to avert death by hunger. Asuquo also adds that good medical treatment for the sick has eluded the returnees, a situation, he says, forces them to seek medical help from unregistered native doctors.
He says, “It has even become embarrassing that we cannot feed ourselves. We used to be hardworking and we used to feed our families without help from anybody. We used to give alms even to the poor. But the trauma of evicting us from our known settlement has continued to haunt us.
He says: “All we need is rehabilitation. The government should train us on skill acquisition programmes and empower us with starter packs to enable us to rediscover ourselves again and move on. We cannot continue to live like this. We are just shadows of ourselves.”
The people lament that they find it difficult to get capital to start up businesses, and that when they were asked to leave home, they were given full assurances and promises that when they come here, things will be better than where they were (in our ancestral homes).
“With what is on ground, I would say, partially, when we came back we were given relief materials and accommodation. Compared to over 2,000 returnees, only 340 people were accommodated. A lot were not accommodated. On the promises, the Cross River State Government has given assistance to us and I call on other state governments whose natives are here to come down and render assistance to us.
“What we do for a living is hired labour: people come here and hire us for labour and give us a token. We clear the bush for people, weed farmlands and so on just to get something to feed our families. Others go to neighbouring villages where they do menial jobs. We plead with governments, both at local, state and federal levels, to come to help us with start-up capital for small businesses, which we shall use the proceeds to take care of our families.”
On the handiwork government promised us, we have people who can learn various skills or handiwork. They should come and train us in skills such as carpentery, auto mechanics, computer apllication, welding, etc.
Speaking on the absence of infrastructure, he says: “Our aged mothers and fathers need hospitals, well-equipped ones, manned by competent health personnel, including medical doctors. We don’t have hospital here; this is really affecting us.
“Though we have electricity, but recently our transformer was stolen by unknown persons. We want government to look into this with a view to giving us light again. Part of this estate is in darkness. The houses given to us cannot accommodate all of us; others are squatting with friends. When we were given the houses, we were told to accommodate fellow returnees.
“We have not received any assistance from our home governments. The only thing that happened was when the director of the State Environmental Manageement Agency (SEMA), Akwa Ibom State, came here and visited us. He promised us the heavens but up until now as I am talking to you, nothing has come from him, nor from any other government official from Akwa Ibom State. They have neither visited us, nor sent any assistance to us. Our home government has disappointed us.”
Leader of the returnees and president, Bakassi Returnees Resettlement Forum Mr. Innocent Asuquo Bassey, laments government’s attitude toward the them.
“Life here is unbearable concerning the welfare of returnees, but I’m appealing that if there is any programme, any sustainable programme for the returnees, government should look into the welfare of returnees. Since we were relocated from our ancestral homes to the new location, life has become difficult for us because our source of livelihood, which was fishing, has been taken away from us. We have not been given an alternative source of livelihood, for us to start a new life. As you are aware, many of us are fishermen. I was a fisher, and in a fishing line I was a crayfish driver. Since I was relocated, I was displaced and now I am here.
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We regret being relocated to this place. I do not have ancestral relationship with the people. Secondly, even though we have been accommodated, we do not have access to anything compared to where we were before now. We counted on the blueprint of the resettlement scheme but government has not implemented it. I know accommodation is a major point in the blueprint of the resettlement, but I cannot eat the house.
He says that the N5,000 given to them is not enough to cater for his family of six.
While he appeals to the state government to come to their help, he also heaps the blame for their travails on the door of the committee in charge of the resettlement programme.
“Instead of the government coming and looking into the problems of the affected persons, they listen to he committee. Meanwhile, the committee enriches themselves and allow us to die in silence. As you can see, apart from the N5000 from the Cross River State government, no other assistance came. All these things make me regret coming here. When I was in my ancestral home, I did not bother myself to know if the government assists me or not. I always be contented with what I caught in the river; from here we sent our children to school and paid our bills.”
“The host community cannot assist us because the returnees are victims of International Court of Justice. We are international victims but the way things happened, it seems we have been rejected by our government.
There are certain things government is supposed to have done for us. If we are not rehabilitated, in the next 30 years there will still be returnees, and resettlement programmes will still continue. So I am appealing that the state governments should come, sit down with us and set up a committee in which the victims will be appointed members, so that they look into resettlement plan and be rehabilitated in a good way; or if government is doubtful of us, it should implement the blueprint of the resettlement and settle us. I was fishermen; if it happens that I died as a fisherman today, I would be proud. It was a profession I was born into.”
According to him, three years after, the New Bakassi has no school, no hospital, no water, no markets.
He also reasons that international subjects, the is supposed to be a United Nations Office there in Bakassi to look into their problems. He begs the authorities no to shut in their problems.
“They should not hide our situation. They should invite the international community through the federal government. We do not have assess to the state governor; we do not have access to the president but we know that as Cross Riverians and Bakassi returnees, who were brought out from Cross River State, we urge our governor?to send our problems to the president.
“Many government officials have been coming, asking us to fill forms and gathering data and information from us, thereafter, we do not see them again. Meanwhile, instead of the state government to act on the information we gave after they came to witness our condition, it will liaise with the committee which has always let us down.”
He pleaded with the federal government to include the settlers in the ongoing amnesty programme for Niger Delta ex-militants.
“We should be considered for amnesty programme of the federal government. Poverty is not lack of food; it is lack of hope. If there is anything like hope that will come from amnesty programme, we will appreciate such gesture. We will be happy and will accept it and thank government for that.
“On behalf of the Bakassi returnees, I use this medium to appeal to the federal government that if there is any sustainable programme, either through the amnesty programme or any other one like that, to assist us to alleviate our poverty level today, it should implement it and bring us out of this problem. Let them implement it and we the returnees, who are international victims, should be given opportunity to travel abroad as the amnesty people do, so that when we are back, we will take care of our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters as well as our parents and relations.”
Speaking to mark the third anniversary of the settlement of the returnees, the Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Mr. Patrick Ugbe, says the days have flown by.
“First and foremost, three years seems just like yesterday. Three years gone by, it seems we have just lost the land! The government has done everything within it power to ensure that we settle the Nigerians, the Cross Riverians who were displaced from the Peninsula.
“You may be aware, we set up a resettlement committee and that committee has worked tirelessly to provide basic amenities, basic accommodation, basic facilities to make our people comfortable in what we call the New Bakassi today. That includes decent accommodation, council headquarters, administrative building, and a provision for health facility. Basically, on its own, the state government has done very well, but one may add that the burden has been too heavy on the state government.”
He appealed to the the international bodies and federal government to assist the government, noting that after the handover, the other parties may not have kept their own end of the bargain, making the burden heavy for the Cross River State government.
On the establishment a United Nations Office in Bakassi, Ugbe says that can only be if the state is not responsive enough to the needs of the people there. He however believes the state government has been very responsive to their needs.
“But be that as it may, if the international body deems it fit to establish or site an office there, I do know quite well that the problem, as it is today, the United Nations is winding up from the region. The Nigerian-Cameroon Mixed Commission function will soon come to an end and once that happens, the two countries will run what is there, the implication is that we will take full responsibility of our people while Cameroon will take full responsibility of their people,” he explains.
He reveals that lack of funds take care of the Bakassi returnees is the biggest challenge facing the resettlement programme and advised them to remain calm and law abiding, as the Cross River State government will do all within its power to ensure that they have decent living.
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