BY JOHNBOSCO AGBAKWURU, Calabar
Displaced indigenes of Bakassi Local Government Area of Cross River State have called on the Federal Government and the National Boundary Commission, NBC, to fully implement the Bakassi Resettlement Committee report.

Speaking at the interactive session with the NBC research team at the Ikang Town Hall, the displaced people of Bakassi and their brothers from Ikang said that the current internal crisis and wrangling among the people of the area would have not come up if the recommendations of the resettlement committee were fully implemented.

The former Bakassi Local Government Chairman and President, Bakassi Union, Chief Ani Esin at the interaction said that some selfish and self serving section of the area had recently played politics with the issue of identity, stressing that those canvassing that were greedy and never had the interest of the people at heart.

Chief Ani contended that natives of Bakassi owe their identity to the stool of Obong of Calabar as majority of them are of Efik origin.

The former chairman who said that “Nigeria should be interested in its citizens beyond its shores’, expressed worry over the incessant attacks on the Bakassi people by the Cameroonian Gendarmes and called for a joint patrol as well as the government ensuring proper demarcation of the boundary between the two countries.

He said one Mr. Oku who was presented at the forum was arrested by the Cameroonian authorities and was released to the Bakassi Union which serves as a Non governmental Organization, NGO, focusing on rights and protection of the displaced people.

Also speaking at the forum, the immediate past Vice-Chairman of the council and Vice-Chairman of the Ikang Joint Assembly, Chief Ene Cobham condemned the attempt by some people to use Day Spring as the new settlement area of the Bakassi people.

“There is no where in the gazette, land tenure law and tradition called Day Spring. Day Spring is the attempt to cease Ikang-Ita land from the owners and give it to a name for the interest of the privileged few”, he said regretting that the scheming by some selfish interest received the support of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

He said that because of the deceit, INEC conducted registration exercise and even went ahead to hold what he described as a controversial election in the area, a development that made some Bakassi people to vote in Akpabuyo, while others were allowed to vote in Bakassi.

Speaking earlier, the leader of the five man NBC Research Team and Director of Research, Abuja, Mr. Ohale Oprene Ebe informed the stakeholders at the forum that the team was there to undertake a study of the 2002 International Court of Justice, ICJ, ruling on the ownership of the disputed island.

Mr. Eba said the findings of the research team would help the Federal Government in cushioning the effect of the sufferings of the displaced people.