At Akwa Ikot Edem in the area designated as Bakassi Local Government Area, thousands of the displaced people of the territory are living there as refuges in a temporary accommodation provided for them some metres away from the Ikang Primary School where they stay under very inhuman conditions.
Leader of the refugees in the camp, Chief Asuquo Etim who spoke to THISDAY, sums up the suffering encountered by the people thus: “Since 2008 that Nigeria kept us here in this camp, we have been facing hardship from hunger, illness, and death. Criminals come here and they attack us with knives and guns rob us and even rape our women. Our women give birth here without any doctors and nurses to help and some of the women and children die because there is no money to buy medicine in Ikang and we don’t have money to take them to hospital.”
The Bakassi General Assembly (BGA) which has championed the resettlement of the people has said it over and again that the plight of the people would be easily addressed if they were resettled in Day Spring Island through the support of the federal government and the international community.
The BGA championed by Chief Bassey Ita as its National President explained in the document that they have even explored the legal option of getting properly resettled.
He had issued a press statement restating their support for resettlement in Day Spring Island.
“Fearing that in the nearest future we would be politically irrelevant as you cannot be a landlord in another man’s land, we headed for court asking Federal Government to properly re-settle and re-locate them unlike their brothers in Niger Delta.
“We had gone to court asking for proper re-location as obtained elsewhere, where communities’ territories were ceded. In a suit no FHC/13/2007, we had prayed a proper re-settlement ad re-location as it was done to people of Lake Chad region. Again, we instituted another case at the Abuja Federal High Court, presided over by Justice Abdulahi Umar, along OAU Quarters in April 2008 and we obtained an order restraining the federal government of Nigeria from ceding Bakassi our home territory until the people are re-located to the same location they asked for.”
It stated that at the moment “over 200 lives have been lost, hundreds of women rapped, our fishing nets burnt on the flimsy excuse that they have paid Nigeria Government for the movable and immovable property and that the Cameroon government had stopped Nigerian fishermen from fishing in their territorial waters.”
In April 2008, the state government established a 15-man committee headed by Ita-Giwa to oversee the resettlement of the Bakassi people in a permanent place.
Other members of the 15-menber committee included the state Commissioners for Lands and Housing; Works; Education; Social Welfare; Health; and the State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in the state who will serve as Secretary.
The rest were chairman of the State Border Development Commission; the State Security Adviser; as well as the State Economic Adviser; Chairman of Bakassi Local Government; the Paramount Ruler of Bakassi; Chief Eyo Ita; Hon. Patrick Antigha Ene, and the Deputy Speaker of the State House of Assembly.
Mr. Efiok Cobham, then deputy governor, who inaugurated the committee, said they were saddled with the responsibility of drawing up an integrated plan for the proper resettlement of the displaced people of the state before August that year.
“This is a very delicate and sensitive assignment which could make or mar the future of the thousands of the people that once lived comfortably in the land of their birth but are now faced with the psychological trauma of being resettled in a new environment. You will draw up a plan and implement a safe and hitch-free plan for the evacuation of Cross Riverians and other Nigerians in both the Cameroon occupied territories and those other territories that are to be handed over by August, 2008,” Cobham had stated.
