• Say we can’t keep losing territories to foreign countries

Dr. Ntufam Joe Okey, a German-trained medical doctor and politician, contested for the governorship of Cross River State in 1990 but lost. He is a delegate to the on going National Conference representing Ejagham ethnic nationality of Cross State. In this chat, he, among other things, canvassed for the creation of Ogoja State.

BY LEVINUS NWABUGHIOGU
You spoke so passionately about Bakassi and the Ejagham people during the plenary session, could you tell us more?
The Ejagham nationality is the second largest ethnic minority in Cross River State spreading from Western Cameroon, down to Bakassi, otherwise called Mbakassi. The entire Western Cameroon originally belonged Nigeria and by a dint of ill luck and selfish interest of some Nigerians, our forefathers of old, the entire Western Cameroon which was made up of entirely Ejagham people got sold out through a silly plebiscite to

the Cameroonians for fear that if the Ejagham people in Cameroon were to come and join the Ejagham people in Nigeria, they might form a majority and threaten other ethnic majorities like the Igbo, for instance. They now came up with that plebiscite where the people now decided whether or not to stay in Cameroon or Nigeria.

They accepted to remain with the Cameroonians where today with the connivance of the francophone regime, they decided to administer that country, refused to develop that area. Up till today, the whole of Western Cameroon that belong to this ethnic minority of the Ejagham people has remained totally undeveloped.

Even Bakassi just yesterday also got sold out to the Cameroonians and the people you find there are mostly the Ejagham people of Cross River State and I can’t understand why we continue to lose Nigerian territory to other nations like the Cameroonians.

In Cross River State today, the Ejagham people like I said form the second largest ethnic group in terms of dialect. After the Efiks, it is the second most widely spoken dialect in Cross River State. Out of the 18 local government areas we have in Cross River State, the Ejagham dialect is spoken in 10. So, I am pleading that Nigeria should stop selling her territory indiscriminately to other nations.

Are there other issues?
Another issue is about one state that is yet to be created in Nigeria. In the days of Zik of Africa, our revered leader, then in Nigeria, we had 12 provinces. Ogoja was one of those old provinces that housed Abakaliki Division, Afikpo Division, Ikom Division and Ogoja Division itself and Obubara Division. But whereas Afikpo, Abakaliki have now translated into Ebonyi State, Ogoja has not been transformed into a state.

There was a time we had a terminology called COR states; the “C” meaning Calabar, “O” meaning Ogoja, “R” meaning Rivers. Whereas Rivers State has now being realized and even subdivided into Rivers State and Bayelsa State, Cross River, the “C” has now been divided into Cross River State and Akwa Ibom State, but Ogoja has remained undivided.

So, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Zik of Africa, before he died, regretted that Ogoja State could not be created in his life time and that he had wished Ogoja to be created as a parting gift to him before he died. But that was never realized. So, I want to believe that a committee responsible for state creation should address that issue.

I would plead with the committee to consider the creation of Ogoja State in the interest of fairness because Ogoja cannot continue to remain like that without a state.

His take on President Goodluck Jonathan’s inaugural speech
The speech is so nice but my contention is that it is still in a booklet. They should put it in a compendium and circulate it among secondary school pupils to create the impact of that kind of speech which could be likened to a speech delivered by Martin Luther King of old.

Another thing which I hadn’t time to say is the joblessness of our youths, which is responsible for the restiveness among our youths today.

In time past, the system of education was a bit better with a lot of emphasis on trade and technical schools and those technical schools churned out a lot of youths especially those who were hardworking into doing jobs of their own thereby reducing unemployment in the system.

If Nigeria were to go back to the era where a lot of emphasis was laid on trade or technical schools, Polytechnics, I am not saying that the university education should be abandoned, it will create a wider and broader spectrum for our youths to learn trades and become self employed and that will help to reduce restiveness among the youths. In countries like Germany where I spent a lot of years, this system of education is very pronounced.

On whether the conference can tackle the controversial issues of ethnicity and religion.
It is true that religion has been on the front burner of discussions at the conference but I believe in the secularity of religion in Nigeria. People should be allowed to worship whomever they want; it should not be reason for us to be so divided among ourselves. I sincerely believe that with the kind of discussions we have been having, we can overcome these problems. If we solve the problem of unemployment like I have said, establish trade schools, creating jobs for our youths, it will be one way of killing restiveness.

There is no way anybody can stop you and I from practicing any kind of religion that we want as long as we respect the integrity of these religion and agree here that religion should not divide us. I am not a pessimist, I believe that as Nigerians comport themselves overseas, we could do the same thing here given the same kind of environment where there is no discrimination among the ethnic groups.