CALABAR— PARAMOUNT Ruler of Bakassi and Chairman of
Cross River Traditional Rulers Council, Etiyin Etim Edet, has said that former President Olusegun
Obasanjo ceded the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon without making adequate plans
for the proper resettlement of the people,
thereby exposing them to untold suffering, which they are still
facing 13 years after the handover.
Okon Edet, who spoke yesterday, in Calabar on the delay in the implementation of the 2013 report of the Presidential Committee on the Plight of the
Displaced Bakassi People, called on the
former president to remove the rope
around his neck before God calls him
because he assured the Bakassi people
before handing over the territory, that they would be allowed to
leave their ancestral home with all
their institutions but were not given that opportunity when the place was
finally handed over.
To make matters worse, he said, the people are yet to be properly resettled in any other
place. He said: “Obasanjo, who is the
main actor in the ceding of Bakassi, is still alive. He made a lot of promises
to us prior to the ceding and we thought that he would fulfil them but he did
not.
He met with us severally at the Aso
Rock Villa, Abuja, and he spoke to us
passionately as the father of the nation which gave us the assurance that the
government would do something reasonable for the people of Bakassi but up till now, we have seen nothing. “He
promised us that we would be allowed to go to any place of our choice with all
our institutions, but uphill now, we
have not been given that choice. Perhaps, he had some other intentions which
were not known to us, that if he gave out
Bakassi, those benefits would
accrue to him but eventually none of those things came to fruition and he
decided to dump us by the way side.” According to the traditional ruler,
“Former President Obasanjo must be
regretting what he did to the people of Bakassi and since he is still
politically active, should redeem his promises to the people.” He said that
claims by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation
and Fiscal Commission that the state had been given N36 billion as compensation for the ceding of
Bakassi was mere propaganda since no
evidence was shown on who actually collected the money on behalf of the state.
Vanguardngr
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