Olusegun Osoba

The three-part autobiography of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, My Watch, has continued to evoke anger and criticisms as the book was described by a former Governor of Ogun State, Olusegun Osoba, as a distortion of history.

Osoba, who promised to write his own book to set the record straight, said Obasanjo lied blatantly when he said that the third term agenda was foisted on him in 2007.

The former governor spoke in Lagos on Monday at the public presentation of a book, titled, “Watching the Watcher: A book of remembrance of the Obasanjo years,” where he was the chairman of the occasion.

The book, which is a rejoinder to Obasanjo’s book, was authored by the Publicity Secretary of the Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin.

Osoba said though he had not read Obasanjo’s book, he was appalled by the aspect of the book where Obasanjo said he did not initiate the relationship between the disbanded Alliance for Democracy and the Peoples Democratic Party.

He said he recalled how Obasanjo approached the AD governors “virtually on his knees, begging us to come and rescue him and support his second term agenda.”

He said that contrary to Obasanjo’s claim that his vice, Atiku Abubakar, was at the forefront of the relationship with Afenifere, Obasanjo was always flying down at the shortest notice from Abuja to meet with the late leader of the Afenifere, Abraham Adesanya, who always chose the venue of their meetings.

Osoba said, “I haven’t read the book but I am of the profession of the watchdog. And when you have somebody watching the watcher, who thought he could be all-in-all in Nigeria… That was why I was interested in coming to honour Yinka. The watcher wrote something important in his book, which Wole Soyinka has given his own verdict about.

“I am going to give my own verdict in my own book. An aspect of it was the mention of 2003, where Gen. Obasanjo denied the relationship between the AD and the PDP. He said it was the idea of the Vice President, the Turaki of Adamawa, Atiku Abubakar. I think the story is far from the fact. Well, we are age mate. So, I can say that it is far from the truth.”

Also speaking at the occasion, a chieftain of the Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, described Obasanjo as a man who did not deserve to be listened to.

Adebanjo said he was shocked that Obasanjo could muster the courage to accuse others of corruption.

He said, “A man who says he is clean…, the Yorubas have a saying that if you want to know who you are, speak to the people around you. Your wife says you are bad, your son says you are of no use, your daughter says you are a miscreant, and you still say you have done well… You know the type of people they are.”

According to Adebanjo, Obasanjo’s biggest undoing was his not giving credit to the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo in his book.

“Here is a man. Those who had been fighting for the independence of this country, he has no good word for them. All his predecessors – the late Nnamdi Azikwe, the late Sardauna of Sokoto, Awolowo and all. And even the greatest opponent of Awolowo would declare that he was a man who made Nigeria great.

“You all remember (the late Chief Emeka) Ojukwu after the death of Chief Awolowo, even with all the controversies that they had, Ojukwu had to remark after Awolowo’s death that he was the greatest and the best President that Nigeria never had. Nobody has contradicted that statement. But to Obasanjo, Nigeria never existed before he came into office, Nigeria cannot exist until he is in office. He has only one adviser: Olusegun Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo, that is his adviser,” Adebanjo said.

Adebanjo said he was surprised when he (Obasanjo) said somebody had unclean hands.

He said he recalled that Obasanjo doubled as the Minister of Petroleum Resources throughout his eight years in office as the President and allegedly perpetrated a lot of untoward actions.

He said, “I also don’t know whether the author remembered the interview that Danjuma gave some time ago that if you audit the account of the NNPC, you would not hesitate to send Obasanjo back to Yola prison. I didn’t say so, but Danjuma said so. And you know how credible that man is. He (Obasanjo) has not refuted the statement.”

Describing Obasanjo as a manipulator, Adebanjo said the former President ensured that the PDP constitution was altered so that he could become the chairman of the party’s Board of Trustees after leaving office.

Adebanjo said Nigerians should be grateful to Odumakin for taking on the responsibility of setting the record straight for the sake of posterity.

The author, Odumakin, said he picked Osoba as the chairman of the book’s public presentation because he rescued him when Obasanjo ordered his detention at the State Criminal Investigations Department, Panti, in 2005.

The reviewer of the book, Prof. G.G. Dara, from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, described the book as “a provocative and polemical book of memoirs and reflections by Yinka Odumakin about Gen, Olusegun Obasanjo.”

He added that the author intended to challenge “the exaggerated claims of heroic grandeur and accomplishments made by the former President.”

Dara said, “He (Odumakin) hopes that the book will add to the collective memory card of Nigerians, so that they would not suffer the disease of amnesia, which encourages unworthy public men and women to act with impunity.”

FG owes 70,000 workers three-month salaries

Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

No fewer than 70,000 civil servants in 30 Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government have yet to receive their three months’ salaries.

The Secretary-General of the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, Mr. Alade Lawal, made this known   just as investigations by The Rev4mation revealed that states like Osun, Oyo, Benue and Plateau are owing their workers between three and four months’ salaries.

Prominent among the ministries listed by Lawal during an interview with one of our correspondents in Abuja on Monday are Education, Works, Labour and Productivity, Mines and Power.

He said, “About eight MDAs have been owing workers their salaries from   October. The number rose to 11 in November and in December, hit 30, including departments and agencies.”

Asked what was responsible for the increase in the number of MDAs indebted to their workers, Lawal said some government officials involved in salary payments were engaged in a game of deceit.

He said, “They are telling us that some of the MDAs are involved in expenditure items different from salaries. They said they were spending on items not related to salaries. But that is not supposed to be the fault of the workers.

“There should be synergy in government whereby they have to work in tandem with the Budget Office and Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation. They know what they are doing, they are muddling up the whole exercise and suffering workers unnecessarily.”

He said the government had no tangible reason for not paying the workers, having promised to do so before December 24.

“As of   December 22, they promised us that before Wednesday, December 24, these payments would be made. But as I am talking to you now, affected workers have not been paid.

“The Ministry of Works alone has about 26,000 workers. If you add them together, they can’t be less than 70,000 workers that are affected.

“We have been liaising with our people. But you know, this is a festive period and it has affected some of the trade union actions we intended taking. The promise that they made last week which they also told the press that they would pay before Christmas, we thought they were serious about it. But latest developments indicate that they are   deceiving us.”

The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had in a statement by her Special Adviser on Communication, Mr. Paul Nwabuikwu, on December 22 promised that the   salary arrears of civil servants in MDAs would be paid before Christmas.

The Rev4mation's World gathered on Monday that civil servants in states like Osun, Oyo, Benue, Plateau and Abia had a bleak Christmas as they are being owed between two and four-month salaries.

In Osun State for instance, the Chairman of state chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress, Mr. Saka Adesiyan, told one of our correspondents in Osogbo that workers were being owed October, November and December salaries.

The Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, Mr. Boye Abolarin, also confirmed that   secondary school teachers   were being owed October, November and December salaries.

Abolarin said that workers were subjected to hardship while politicians were feeding fat especially during the Yuletide.

Governor Rauf Aregbesola, however,   blamed the development on the dwindling monthly   allocations     to the state.

Aregbesola, in a   statement made available to our correspondent by his media aide,   Semiu Okanlawon, said, “Either at the federal or at the state level, where is it that workers   are being paid as and when due?

“We thought this situation will not last long. That was why we used our strategic reserve to augment salaries for one year. All our savings were spent on augmentation of salaries.”

In Oyo, the state NLC   Chairman, Basiru Alli,   said   that the November and December salaries of some workers were being awaited.

He said, “I will not say that government in the state is owing us, it is actually delaying payment of workers salaries. As of now, not all workers have been paid November salaries. Some are still waiting for theirs. We do not know when the December salary will come.”

Asked what efforts the NLC was making to ensure all the workers got paid, Alli said that they were told by the government that   dwindling allocations from the Federal Government were responsible.

“We hold consultations with the government from time to time and what we were told the last time was that it was not a deliberate attempt to delay the salaries but due to dwindling allocations, the state had to manage its resources.”

But the Special Adviser to Governor Abiola Ajimobi on Media, Dr. Festus Adedayo, said that all workers had been paid November salaries.

He said, “The state government is passionate about staff welfare. We are handicapped by the dwindling allocations from the Federal Government. We have a wage bill of N4.9bn but the allocation we have this month was N2.9bn. Last month, the state got N3.1bn from the Federal Government. We are   working hard to ensure workers are paid the December salaries.”

The situation in Benue State is not better as the   government is also currently owing three months’ salaries.

Before the Yuletide,   the government owed workers five months’ salaries but it paid two months’ salaries at different intervals.

A civil servant, who pleaded anonymity told The PUNCH that a day to Christmas, some of his colleagues received alert for one month salary while on Monday, others received alert for their second salary payment.

The civil servant   explained that they could not enjoy the Yuletide due to the debts they had incurred.

He said, “What the state government paid to us was used to settle   debts .

“Mind you, we from the mainstream civil service are not on any industrial action but the state is currently owing us three month-salaries. I can tell you that the situation is worse for lecturers as they have been on half salaries for five months.”

Investigations by The Rev4mation's World in Abia State indicated that while civil servants in the   ministries   had received their November and December salaries, their counterparts in the parastatals were being owed some months .

The Chairman, NLC   in the state,   Sylvanus Eye, said workers in the parastatals had not been paid November and December salaries.

He added that teachers as well as council workers   were also being owed arrears of two months.

The state   leadership of NLC had about three weeks ago picketed the office of the Accountant General   over the salary arrears of the parastatal workers   and for allegedly witholding check- off dues of the union.

When contacted, the Accountant General,   Gabriel Onyendilefu, said that “the function of payment is dependent on available cash”.

He explained that in the past five months, the state’s allocations from the federation accounts had been dwindling following the constant fall in the price of crude oil.

In Kogi State, local governments’ workers complained that they only received half of their salaries for October and November.

They alleged that they still had some backlogs of salaries that were not fully paid.

A source, who pleaded anonymity, said the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Alhaji Abubakar Sadiq, had informed them that they would receive alert of their December payment on 

Tuesday(today).

The NLC Chairman, Plateau State chapter, Mr. Jibrin Bancir, told one of our correspondents that the government was owing many workers four months arrears of salaries and   leave grants.

The worst hit are local government workers who have not been paid for about seven months.

Meanwhile, the NLC has directed its state chapters to furnish it with actual state of affairs in connection with the salary arrears.

Noting that it was criminal for any government to owe workers their salaries, the NLC said it would take a firm decision in a couple of days on the issue.

The General Secretary of the congress, Mr. Peter Ozo-Eson, stated this in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents in Ilorin on Monday.

He said, “We have not taken a firm decision on what to do until we get actual information on which state, what is owed, how many months and the actual amount from all the state councils. We hope that within a couple of days, these reports would have got to us and we would take a firm position on them.

“We would rely on the reports that we get from our state chapters. We are asking our state to advise us on salary payments and if there are debts. Based on that we are going to collate take appropriate actions in relation to getting those salaries paid.

“We condemn any state government that is owing arrears of salaries because the workers must be the first to be paid before they start spending on any other issue.”

Ozo-Eson said it was worrisome that even the Federal Government was owing some categories of its workers for about three months.

He lamented that some state chapters of the NLC did not give the national body a report on time that their members   were being owed.

He stated that payment of workers’ salaries should be made a priority.

The NLC secretary said,   “For us, it is criminal for any government not to pay workers’ salaries, accumulate them over months while the governors and other political office holders take their own salaries. Such is criminal. We are also aware that even the Federal Government is owing some categories of civil servants their salaries   for over three months.

“This is extremely unacceptable. Whatever is the reason for that! In the case of the Federal Government, they try to explain it in terms of problems with migration to IPPIS system.We think whatever is the logic, those salaries and   arrears need to be paid immediately.

“On state governments that are owing, unfortunately some of the NLC chapters   did not bring it to our notice early enough for us to know that salaries are owed. If you owe a worker salary for a month, you have no moral obligation to expect workers to come and render any service.

“So to hear that there are states and large number of them that are owing workers for two or three months is completely unacceptable.”

Obasanjo, Buhari planning interim govt —FG

Obasanjo and Buhari

The Minister of Police Affairs, Jelili Adesiyan, on Monday, said a plot by former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) to form an interim government has been uncovered.

The minister said this in Lagos at the launch of a book titled, ‘Watch the Watcher,’ written by an activist, Yinka Odumakin, in reaction to Obasanjo’s controversial book, ‘My Watch’.

Adesiyan said he had already directed the Inspector General of Police, Suleiman Abba; and the Department of State Service to arrest anybody that made inflammatory statements ahead of the 2015 elections.

He said, “Many of those in the APC are disgruntled PDP members who are no longer relevant and because they could not have their way, they have started to heat up the polity. They have said they will form a parallel government if they lose.

“I have already told the IG and the DSS to arrest anybody making such mutinous and inflammatory statements.”

Adesiyan said his suspicion was fuelled by a threat by the Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, that the APC would form a parallel government if the 2015 general elections were rigged.

He added, “Obasanjo is already planning to install an interim government with Buhari. But we will vote and we will work with whoever wins the election.”

Adesiyan, who was detained in 2003 for the murder of the Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige, said the former President was vindictive and was fighting Jonathan because he (Jonathan) had refused to be used by him.

The minister, who was later freed over Ige’s murder, said Obasanjo picked Jonathan as the late President Umaru Yar’Adua’s running mate because he felt he could control him but his plans backfired.

The minister said, “He picked a President that was sick and while we were campaigning for the President, he (Yar’Adua) was always in Germany receiving treatment. While many were lobbying for the VP slot, Obasanjo picked a gentleman, Goodluck Jonathan, who had no strong political base so that he could control him.

“Unfortunately for Obasanjo, God had a better plan and Jonathan refused to be used. Obasanjo, being the man that he is, has now teamed up with Bola Tinubu and Atiku Abubakar to snatch power but Tinubu will outsmart him because we Osun people are smart. Ask Tinubu, he is my brother, from my state. He is from Iragbiji while I am from Ode-Omu.”

The Director of Communications, Buhari Campaign Organisations, Dele Alake, said it was silly for anyone to say that Buhari was plotting the emergence of an interim government when Buhari was also participating in the presidential election.

He said, “It must have dawned on Nigerians that the PDP don’t have any answer to the multifarious problems plaguing Nigeria and that is why they have resorted to mudslinging and character assassination.

“If Buhari was planning an interim government, why would he be running for President in the first place? I think sanity has taken leave from them.

“Buhari remains the only viable solution to the quagmire that Nigeria has fallen into and it will take a disciplined person like Buhari to straighten things out.”

When contacted, a source close to Obasanjo, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it was only the ex-president that could react to the allegation.

The source told our correspondent on the telephone, “It is only Baba that can react to the matter.”

Bakassi: Refugee father uses daughter as collateral for N600,000 loan

Mary and Okon the Father

Apart from hunger and ill health ravaging the camps of displaced Bakassi indigenes, TEMITAYO FAMUTIMI uncovers the story of a 12-year-old girl whose refugee father has pushed into servitude

In the dusty village of Akwa Ikot Eyo Edem, Akpabuyo Local Government Area of Cross River State, Edet Okon sat down in front of St. Mark Primary School.

Sitting cross-legged on the concrete floor on one of the blocks of classrooms he now calls his home, the 40-year-old father of three leaned forward to exchange pleasantries with this correspondent.

Okon’s immediate family members and 963 other households had fled their ancestral homes in Efut Obot Ikot in the ceded Bakassi Peninsula in March 2013.

In the beginning

They escaped the alleged sacking of their villages and fishing posts by Cameroonian gendermanes in which some Bakassi indigenes reportedly lost their lives, while scores sustained varying degrees of life-threatening injuries.

The onslaught followed the Federal Government’s handing over of the ceded Bakassi Peninsular to Cameroon in 2007, in compliance with a 2002 International Court of Justice judgment.

After having travelled by boat and foot over several kilometers to safety, they took shelter in two of the three blocks of classrooms at St. Mark Primary School, and another classroom block at Community Secondary School in the same Akwa Ikot Eyo Edem community.

Okon, like his fellow displaced Bakassi indigenes, left behind all his property and means of livelihood, majorly fishing nets and boats, as they ran for dear life.

The Cross River State Government took responsibility for their feeding since they relocated from Bakassi. But since September 2014, relief materials, including food stuffs, have not been provided for the hundreds of displaced indigenes camped in the two schools.

The camps had literally been turned into a melting pot for hungry and largely sick refugees, many of who now live on handouts from churches and local farmers in the community.

His daughter now a collateral

Okon, who joined our correspondent on a tour of the overcrowded refugee camps, appeared less bothered about the life of squalor they now lead.

The fisherman lost his first daughter, Blessing, to the cold hands of death in September 2013, after battling with blood cancer for five months.

But Okon’s agony did not end with Blessing’s death. Indeed, he now lives in the pool of the anguish of a man who has to practically sell his child into slavery. To raise funds for the series of medical tests, drugs, feeding and hospital bills incurred by Blessing, he opted to secure loans from someone to save her dying daughter.

With no property to guarantee the loan, Okon gave up his second daughter, Mary, as collateral to secure the sum of N600, 000 given to him in installments.

Our correspondent gathered that the creditor is a civil servant based in Calabar.

“I was desperate to save Blessing from dying. Her situation had become critical at that time. That was the only thing I could do to salvage the situation. I am heartbroken,” Okon said, as his voice faded off, breaking down in tears.

As tears rolled down his cheeks, he recalled the day he ‘sold’ her daughter into servitude.

“I don’t know what came over me. It was sheer desperation I gave out my daughter so that the man would accept to give us the money,” Okon added, fighting back regrets of what many are likely to regard as condemnable.

Ufot

Our correspondent reached out to the intermediary, Daniel Ufot. He helped Okon to negotiate the N600, 000 loan from the creditor. On getting to the residence of the 59-year-old Ufot, who lives some five kilometres away from the camp, our correspondent found Mary in his residence.

Ufot explained that some plain-cloth security operatives keeping watch on the camp had asked him to bring Mary from Calabar to meet with his father who he had not seen in 19 months.

“I do not know Okon from Adam. But since I’m an expert in money lending, I offered to help him after having learnt of his predicament on how he had been battling to save the life of his daughter.

“But unfortunately, he could not provide any form of collateral to secure the loan. But the creditor, in his magnanimity, agreed to have her daughter as collateral since she was the only valuable ‘thing’ he could offer,” Ufot said.

In a chat with this correspondent, Mary, who was a junior secondary school 2 pupil before they left Bakassi in March, 2013, has since dropped out of school following their displacement from the oil rich peninsular. She shared horrible tales of inhuman treatment in the hands of her father’s creditor.

Every morning, Mary hawks bottle water on the streets of Calabar, where, incidentally, Mary Slessor stopped the killing of twins. Observers may also spot the irony in the name of the legendary missionary and the enslaved Mary Okon. She added that on any day she failed to exhaust the sales of her wares, her new guardians descended heavily on her, beating her mercilessly in the process.

“The man my father is owing has three female children and some other relatives are also putting up with us in the house. They normally give me a revenue target of N1, 000 daily.

“And sometimes when the market is bad and I don’t finish selling the water, they beat me up. They treat me very badly. I eat only once in a day and that is in the morning.

“I wash all their clothes, including the ladies’ pants, and do other house chores, too. And if I hesitate on washing their pants, they get infuriated and throw objects at me at will. I will not feel happy if I go back there,” she narrated.

Yet, Ufot insisted that he only brought Mary to meet with his father as a respite since he had not set his eyes on her for about 19 months.

“There are no signs that they would be repaying the loan. I only obeyed the instruction of the security men. She will be on her way back to the creditor’s place in Calabar,” Ufot said.

When contacted, the Refugee Camp Leader, Etim Ene, confirmed to our correspondent on the telephone on Monday that Mary has indeed returned to the creditor in Calabar.

Ene said, “Mary has been taken to the creditor’s house in Calabar South. He was taken away by the guarantor, on December 2.”

Efforts by our correspondent to trace the address of the creditor, whose name is given as Asuquo Etim, said to be residing on Atimbo Road, Calabar South Local Government Area, was abortive. The creditor is said to be an employee of the Cross River State Urban Development Agency.

Ufot had earlier refused to allow Mary to travel with our correspondent to her master’s residence for fear of the unknown.

Mary’s mother was away in the farm during a visit by The Punch.

Nursing mother feeds on garri

The expectation of a baby often brings excitement and joy. But for displaced Bakassi indigenes camped in dilapidated and overcrowded classrooms in Akwa Ikot Eyo Edem village, the birth of a newborn baby cause them anxiety and sorrow.

Nkese with her baby, Bright

Thirty five-year-old Nkese Peter gave birth to her fifth child, Bright, on September 27 in the camp. On sensing the economic burden the new-born baby would have on the finances of the poor family, Nkese’s husband, Simon, a Bakassi fisherman before their displacement, tried to make ends meet by taking to small scale farming.

But bad yields, occasioned by his inexperience with the agricultural activity, had made him record successive losses. Compounding their woes is the alleged failure of the Cross River State Government to provide the camps with food and other relief materials for three months running.

To keep body and soul together, Nkese, a nursing mother, now survives on garri daily. Yet, medical experts are of the opinion that a staple food like garri would do little in boosting the production of milk, a newborn is expected to feed on.

“Feeding is my major challenge. I’m facing hunger. I eat once in a day and that is garri, which I drink once in a day. The simple question I want to ask the authorities is: When are they coming to see us and resettle us? We are really suffering. We need assistance; we are not finding it easy staying here,” the distraught mother of five said in an emotion-laden voice.

Like mother, like son

Following a request by our correspondent, the only resident nurse in the camp, Patricia Asuquo, agreed to examine Nkese and Bright.

“They are both anaemic,” the medical official declared, as she pulled their lower eyelids down one after the other.

Facing two months old Bright, whose body was covered with rashes, Asuquo explained that the poor nutrition of her mother was telling greatly on his feeding and resistance to “little illnesses and body reactions.”

“The baby is not sucking any nutrients from the mother. The mother is malnourished herself, so what do we expect from the child?” Asuquo lamented.

The medical official who is in the employ of the state government explained that the poor nutrition of the displaced persons, coupled with the poor sanitary and unhealthy condition of the camp, was dealing a devastating blow to their health.

Health centre without drugs

Yet, the health centre which the nurse solely oversees had run out of drugs as of December 1 when our correspondent visited there. The only drugs she dispensed were Paracetamol and Vitamin C to patients suffering various ailments such as pneumonia, typhoid and malaria fever.

“There is no drug, there is no food. My job was easier when there were drugs. Many of their children have rashes and poxes but there are no anti-biotics to treat them. The situation is that bad.

“I think they need to experience a better life than this. Many of those suffering ailments simply lie down helplessly,” she added as she took our correspondent on an inspection of the health centre.

While expressing concern over the condition under which they live, the nurse lamented that attending to over 3,000 displaced persons in the two camps was overwhelming.

One of her major challenges, she added, was the fact that she had not had a break since 2013 when she was posted to oversee the provision of primary health care to them.

“I’m overwhelmed. That is my challenge. As a health staffer, I am supposed to run shifts and have some off days. But since I resume here in 2013, I work from morning till evening and at times I spend the night in the stuffy health centre. No offs, no shifts, no leave, no inconvenient allowances. The way they abandoned them, they have also abandoned me,” Asuquo said.

A 69-year-old widow, Bassey Eyo, lamenting the untoward hardship she had been going through since she returned from the ceded Bakassi peninsular, asked if it was fair for them to be on the receiving end of “utter neglect.”

“I have enough firewood to cook but there are no foodstuffs. How long would I continue to sleep on empty stomach?” she asked, bursting into tears.

Leader of the Bakassi returnees in the camp, Mr. Etim Ene, said the aged in the camp now “look haggard occasioned by hunger and want.”

According to him, the young returnees desperate to eke out a living are now being recruited by politicians as thugs.

“It is running into months now since food was distributed to us in this camp. Many of us have become sick due to poor nutrition. The sick ones among us go to the various churches for feeding and healing.

“It is saddening that the state government has totally abandoned the people of Bakassi. No help from the agencies. The hunger is much especially among the elderly ones.”

But the authorities are always quick to boast having resettled and rehabilitated many Bakassi returnees while also claiming to have equipped them with skills capable of making them self-reliant.

‘We are also hungry’

However, hundreds of returnees at the Obutong and Ikot Efiom resettlement centres, Bakassi Local Government Area, disagreed with the authorities during a visit by our correspondent.

The returnees in the two resettlement centres were the first set of displaced indigenes that left the ceded territories in October 2009.

Inside the refugee camp

They moved into the mini-flats in the resettlement centres built by the Cross River State Government in January 2010.

In spite of what many would describe as a kind gesture from the government, the “resettled” returnees described themselves as “political orphans.”

General Coordinator of the two centres, Prince Aston Joseph, said, “I hate to hear that we have been resettled. They provided over 2,800 households with 343 mini-flats and they call that resettlement.

“Bakassi people are fishermen and we marry more than one wife and give birth to a large number of children. They allocated us empty houses with no facilities. The only property given to each household is a single bed.

“Can you imagine how a family with between eight to 15 children will share a bed? When we moved in here in 2010, they only fed us for three months and since then, they abandoned us.

“No food, no rehabilitation, no resettlement. Their talk of empowerment is untrue. They only brought forms for skill acquisition and we filled and returned to them but we haven’t heard from them ever since. None of the skill acquisition programmes has been implemented here.”

Death by starvation

Lamenting the toll of hunger on the Bakassi indigenes, secretary of the returnee association in the two resettlement centres, Linus Asuquo-Essien, said one of them died of starvation in September.

The deceased, 38-year-old Edet Archibong, was said to have been complaining of starvation for weeks and had been living on food donations from his co-returnees.

“We complained to the Bakassi Local Government officials and the state government about the state of affairs with Archibong but they did not respond. People were tired of fending for him so he was left alone.

“At a point he took ill and his condition deteriorated in August. Those people who used to support him thought he had Ebola and everyone distanced themselves from him. The government officials refused to come and we lost him in the process.

“We requested that the government people should arrange for his burial, but they refused to heed our call. We had to procure gloves and we did the interment ourselves,” Asuquo-Essien explained at the site where Archibong’s remains were interred.

But the Cross River State Government said it remained committed to providing the displaced Bakassi indigenes with “mass care” and prioritising their “basic needs”.

Officials at the Governor’s Office, however, noted that it was true that the displaced Bakassi people housed in schools-turned camps in Akpabuyo Local Government Area had stopped receiving food and other relief materials since September.

‘No food for Bakassi refugees anymore’

Director General State Emergency Management Agency in the Cross River Governor’s Office, Vincent Aqua, blamed the development on the resolve of the state government to replace the distribution of food and relief materials with “conditional cash transfer of N5,000” to each household.

“We decided to replace it (foodstuffs and relief materials) with conditional cash transfer. It is easier and it helps them more as they can determine what they want to do with the money they are given.

“The Cross River State Ministry of Social Welfare is where the conditional cash transfer is domiciled and they are working out the modalities and any moment from now they would start getting it,” Aqua said.

He argued that he was aware the Bakassi returnees’ health would have been deteriorating due to starvation. “They could have a drop in their health status in very recent times. But their health condition is not too bad,” he added.

According to the SEMA DG, the Bakassi returnees in Obutong and Ikot Efiom resettlement centres have been resettled and would no longer enjoy the distribution of relief materials.

“We can no longer give food to people at the resettlement centre. They have been given accommodation and equipped with skills and empowerment tools. You cannot begin to carry out rehabilitation for people who have been resettled by the government,” he said.

Waiting for the UN

While thousands of Bakassi indigenes have since relocated from the ceded territories and returned to Nigeria to pick up the pieces of their lives after their displacement, hopes of reintegration have continued to elude them.

Sadly, as thousands of them look forward to being economically empowered and become financially self-reliant, there are no accurate statistics of the number of displaced indigenes who have yet to be resettled.

Aqua acknowledged that there was “no clear cut programme” that has been put forward for the resettlement of thousands of Bakassi refugees who have yet to be catered for.

“We have not compiled their statistics. When there is a programme we will begin to compile data to fit into the plan,” he added.

Noting that Cross River State had been carrying out “humanitarian disaster management” which runs into millions of naira, the SEMA DG lamented that the Federal Government had done little to alleviate the suffering of the Bakassi indigenes.

He explained that the state government was now looking up to the United Nations to help resettle the thousands of displaced indigenes with a view to giving them a new life.

“There is an indication that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is interested in the resettlement of the Bakassi people.

“We hope that by next year (2015) they (UNHCR) will begin to discuss with us about resettlement. We also hope that by next year the Federal Government would move towards their proper resettlement,” Aqua stated.

FG’s reaction

When contacted on the efforts by the Federal Government to permanently resettle the Bakassi refugees, Director of Press and Public Relations, Federal Ministry of the Interior, Alhaji Ade Yusuf, said, “I don’t have any information about that. If I find out, I will get back to you.”

But the National Emergency Management Agency explained that it was not aware that Bakassi returnees in housed in refugee camps and resettlement centres were starving.

NEMA South South Zonal Coordinator, Mr. Ben Oghena, told our correspondent that the Federal Government through the agency had over the years distributed “quantum of relief materials” to the returnees.

“The Cross River State government has not told us that they have been overwhelmed. They should tell us. Then we can see how we can support what the state government is doing,” Oghena stated.

Noting that NEMA had not been treating the plight of the refugees with levity, the NEMA boss observed that the agency in collaboration with relevant government agencies were looking at “permanent solutions” to the problems of the Bakassi people.

“It’s (Bakassi returnees displacement) taking too long and it’s the state (Cross River) and their local government can tell us what the plan is. The land where they will be resettled must be provided by them because it is not the Federal Government that will do that,” he added.

In 1994, the Republic of Cameroon led by its President Paul Biya, brought a case before the International Court of Justice to rule on the sovereignty of the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsular.

Before then, there had been decades of border skirmishes and palpable tension between Nigeria and Cameroon which almost degenerated into a war in 1980.

After eight years of legal tussle at The Hague, Netherlands, the ICJ in its judgment dated October 10, 2002, ruled that “sovereignty over the Bakassi Peninsula lies with Cameroon.”

The caveat, which followed the ICJ verdict, was that the judgment was “final, without appeal and binding for the parties (Nigeria and Cameroon).”

On August 14, 2008, Nigeria formally handed over the oil rich peninsular to Cameroon, withdrawing troops from the hitherto disputed region whose population are predominantly Nigerians of the Annang, Efut, Efik and Ibibio ethnic stocks.