Persons displaced as a result of the ceding of the disputed oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula by Nigeria to Cameroon have expressed indignation that they have been abandoned to their fate by government.
The returnees were speaking during a rescue mission to their Akpabuyo make-shift settlement in Calabar, Cross River State by the office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Abuja on December 12, 2014.
Speaking on behalf of the over 2,940 embittered Bakassi displaced persons, their Camp Leader, Etim Okon Ene, told the UN Refugee Agency, which was in Calabar to donate assorted relief items to improve their difficult living conditions, that since they were forcefully evicted from the Peninsula and rendered homeless by Cameroonian gendarmes in June, 2008, the government dumped them at the temporary settlement at Government Primary School Ikang, Akpabuyo Local Government Area, and forgot about them shortly after giving them material support for a period of time.
According to Mr Okon, since the attack and killing of their youths and eventual eviction from their Bakassi ancestral land by armed gendarmes and their mass return to the present abode, their major outcry has always been for the government to relocate them to where they could at least be comfortable, but government has remained insensitive to their plight.
“We need a permanent settlement of our own where we can carry out libation to our ancestors, which we cannot do in a strange land. We need a place similar to our Bakassi ancestry where we can continue to practice finishing and other activities which were our major sources of existence,” Okon said remorsefully and added that they felt alienated and caught between and betwixt because now they were neither Nigerians nor Cameroonians.
“Our leaders in the country have failed us by selling our heritage to Cameroon for peanuts. They failed to enforce the wordings of our national pledge and anthem which say ‘to defend our fatherland,’ no matter the situation at hand,” Okon added.
He expressed regret that the government showed no interest in listening to their plight, let alone resolving their long-standing problems, which include lack of support and assistance such as adequate shelter, domestic items and access to education as well as healthcare services, just to name a few.
The frustration of the several hundred thousand returnees was further captured in a pathetic poem presented by 10-year-old Abigail Etim Okon, titled “Adieu Blissful Bright.” The young poet describes Bakassi as their root and land of their birth and breath ransacked by an August visitor of doom. The poet blames their current predicament on the Greentree Agreement.
However, Special Adviser in the Cross River State Governor’s office, Roy Ndoma Egba, said the state and federal governments were still concerned about the plight of the displaced and had plans to ameliorate their living conditions.
He called on the UN to take their intervention beyond punctual material assistance to providing lasting solution to the problem. According to him, the ceding of the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon has still not been ratified by the National Assembly, which meant that Bakassi did not even exist.
UNHCR Representative to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Angele Dikongue-Atangana, who presented the relief items to the returnees, said the UN Refugee Agency was highly concerned about their plight. She promised that the agency and its partners, as well as the competent authorities would ensure that the legal status of the victims was ascertained. According to her, this was not the first time that UNHCR was assisting the Bakassi displaced persons, and would continue to work closely with the Cross River State government in order to resolve the problem, which UNHCR was considering with utmost seriousness, once and for all.
The relief items delivered by UNHCR to the suffering community included 740 mattresses,2400kgs of clothes, 40 generators, 40 hairdressing machines, 20 barbing machines, 90 Indian hoes, 90 machetes, 900 Naftak sprayers, and 900 bottles of herbicides to enable these families restart their lives and re-establish their traditional fishing and farming lifestyle.UNHCR delivered the assistance together with the Office of the Governor and its affiliate state emergency management agency (SEMA) for the Cross Rivers State.
Last year the agency delivered similar assistance to the Bakassi population through an international NGO, RHEMA CARE.
Trying to justify the brutality and forceful eviction of the Bakassi residents from the oil-rich peninsula, Cameroon’s Consul to Cross River State, Michel Auguste Atangana, said shortly after the International Court of Justice ceded the peninsula to Cameroon, the Cameroon government set up a committee to resolve development issues in Bakassi. But most of the residents were impatient and demonstrated against the new administration. Mr Atangana said this prompted the Cameroon security forces to intervene in order to restore peace and order.
It could be recalled that the Bakassi residents became landless and their predicaments began following the Greentree Agreement, which was supposedly the formal treaty that resolved the Cameroon-Nigeria border dispute over the oil and natural gas rich Bakassi peninsula. The dispute had roots as far back as 1913, with bloody armed clashes in 1981, 1994, and 1996 between both countries. The dispute was referred to the International Court of Justice and on 10 October 2002 the ICJ ruled in favour of Cameroon.
On 12 June 2006, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Cameroonian President Paul Biya, signed the Greentree Agreement concerning the withdrawal of troops and transfer of authority in the Peninsula. The accord set the withdrawal of Nigerian troops for 60 days but allowed for a possible 30-day extension while Nigeria was allowed to keep its civil administration and police in Bakassi for another two years.
A follow-up committee, composed of representatives from Cameroon, Nigeria, the UN, Germany, the USA, France and the UK, was created to monitor the implementation of the agreement.
However, Nigeria had a 10-year period of grace to appeal the ICJ ruling but the federal government was reluctant to do so, until the date expired. Today, its citizens are suffering beyond imagination and feel abandoned by their own leaders.
