President Bola Tinubu.
By Anietie Akpan
Indigenous displaced people of Bakassi in Cross River State have decried neglect and abandonment by the Federal Government of Nigeria 18 years after ceding the area to Cameroon.
In a statement by the Indigenous Displaced People of Bakassi Communities (IDPBC), by Comrade Etim Bassey James, said they are “the people who were directly affected by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) judgment of 2002, with the signing of Green Tree Agreement (GTA) in 2006, which saw the Ceding of some parts of Bakassi peninsula with their oil wells and aquatic lives to the Republic of Cameroon, making the Bakassi people homeless, abandoned and traumatized for 18 years now”.
“We are also Nigerians, we need fare treatment, we shouldn’t lost our homeland, lost our resources, lost faith in our country”, they lamented.
The group said, Bakassi Local Government Area (LGA) is made up of the Efiat, Efik, Efut and the quas people who are Crossriverians in Nigeria. Bakassi is among the 18 LGAs in Cross River State and the 774 LGAs in Nigeria.
The western part Bakassi which is the unceded parts of Dayspring 1, Dayspring 2 and Kwa Island, were the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had delineated in 2011, registered voters and conducted all National elections there as Bakassi state Constituency in 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2023.
Despite this, they said, “no single development or government presence in the Area for the Displaced People, rather it is abandoned and only used for National elections every four years by INEC.
“The people of Bakassi accepted the Ceding of parts of their territories in compliance with the ICJ Judgment by the federal Government of Nigeria for International peace, with a promised by the then President of Nigeria His Excellency Chief Obasanjo, of a better life and proper resettlement plans in Nigeria, 18 years down the line, both the federal and State governments are still on the drawing board with the faith of the people”.
In this regards, the group called on President Ahmed Bola Tinubu in his Renewed Hope agenda to “look into the plights of Bakassi people who were directly affected by the ICJ Judgment because even the federal allocations meant for Bakassi LGA development is being used to develop parts of Akpabuyo LGA in the name of Bakassi. The Indigenous Displaced People of Bakassi communities have been abandoned in their own country”.
