By Emma Amaize, Regional Editor, South South and John Ighodaro, Calabar
Panorama- OBUBRA in Obubra Local Government Area of Cross River State is a serene community to live in. It is predominantly an agrarian setting with yam as a major produce of the farmers. Besides yam, cassava, plantain, bananas are also produced in marketable capacity.

The people are down-to-earth and long-suffering and besides the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) training camp and College of Agriculture named after former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, there is not much to show in terms of federal presence in the area.

Alaibe inspecting projects in ex-militants training camp

And so, the paramount ruler of Obubra, Clement Ewona, and his people were very happy when the Federal Government chose the town as the training and rehabilitation centre for ex-militants who accepted amnesty in the Niger-Delta region.

Sunday Vanguard gathered that with the presence of the federal establishments in the area, the people believed that the much desired development would soon come to them and prepared to continue playing a good host.

However, they were taken aback when the Federal Government commenced training of ex-militants at Obubra in June without formally informing the community. Said the paramount ruler of Obubra. “We were taken unawares by the action of the Federal Government”

The “invasion” of the community by the first batch of ex-militants left a sour taste in the mouth of the people and they were waiting for the Federal Government to come with the next batch, but, the special adviser to the president on Niger-Delta and coordinator of the post-amnesty programme, Chief Timi Alaibe, read the mood of the people correctly, and during the week, he embarked on a two-pronged mission that calmed the nerves of the people and set the right tune for the training of the  next batch of ex-militants.

First  two weeks- The first two weeks of the  first batch of ex-militants in Obubra was really an eye-opener, both for the community and the post-amnesty committee, which had to carry out a post-mortem before the next batch will resume.

So many stories were told, some true and others false, of how the ex-militants allegedly raped girls. Obubra local government council boss, Mr. Nicholas Ayuwa, said most of the reports on rape of girls were fallacious, while the Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Obubra, Mr. Joe Robert, also dismissed the claims.

But the youth leader of Obubra local government, Godfrey Sunday Adoke, confirmed that “our girls were raped by the ex-militants and some of the cases were reported to the police”.

His statement was corroborated by the youth leader of Ogada II, Ekong Sylvanus Ibingha. Ibingha told Sunday Vanguard of how the ex-militants left their training camp and mounted an illegal checkpoint on the outskirts of the community, where he and his wife were harassed on his way to the farm.

He said they demanded to see the contents of the food he was taking to the farm and even intimidated security agents in their camp.

A prisons officer in the community said, “The ex-militants wandered away from the camp and constituted a threat to the girls in this community. The women were afraid to come out and even go to the church because of them.

I don’t know what they were searching for , but, some of them even got missing in the bush and were assisted back to the camp by the villagers”.

Adoke, however, said it was later discovered that the rank of ex-militants that came for training were infiltrated by some miscreants and, after a proper screening was conducted by security agents and those involved sent out of the camp, a sense of normalcy returned.

The scenario between the ex-militants and the community can be likened to that of a cat and mouse, and the people – both the young and old – were probably waiting to bare their fangs when Alaibe came on a disarming peace mission on Thursday.

Peace Mission- Ayuwa was waiting for Alaibe and other members of the post-amnesty committee in his office. Alaibe started the discussion, but, took the fire off Ayuwa by the time he ended his speech.

The council boss confessed later that if not for the comments of Alaibe and the way he chose his words, he was to tell him that the manner the Federal Government sneaked into Obubra and commenced the training of ex-militants without contacting the chief helmsman of the local government was unbecoming.

He, nonetheless, said the ex-militants should be confined to their training camp and not come out to mingle with the people during their training until their trainers certify them fit to do so.

Alaibe thanked the chairman for hosting the ex-militants, who  government regards as  new societal role models, adding, “Even in our unruliness, I thank you for your support”.

The presidential adviser pointed out that the assistance Obubra has rendered to the sustenance of the program so far would not go unrecognized in the history of the country, as it would be known as a community that helped in refining the group of Nigerians who took to militancy for one reason or the other against the country.

Security men frisk visitors- Sunday Vanguard reporters were not only frisked when they visited on Thursday, their vehicle was searched also. From the new look of the camp, it is now a military camp with the surveillance posts within the premises.

Massive construction works were going on in the various departments to pave the way for the next batch of ex-militants. For security and management reasons, the number of ex-militants for the next batch has been reduced from 2,000 to 600.

An Obubra resident, Mr. Daniel Okoi, spoke on the community’s experience with the ex-militants, “The experience we had with the ex-militants is that when they came in to Obubra, they created a lot of problems in the community, we were not used to this kind of people and their behavior they displayed and, you know, people generally fear militants, whether they are ex-militants or otherwise”.

“To be frank with you, the women were afraid of them because they were going after the girls, as if they could not stay without women. Maybe, that is what they are used to. However, after sometime, they started to cope”, he said.

According to the DPO, Mr. Robert, “As a police officer, we envisaged the contradictory behavior of the ex-militants, taking into consideration the kind of people they are and we were prepared to ensure that they were confined to the camp”.

On the rape incidents, he had this to say, “Nobody was raped, it was a general rumor”.

What Sunday Vanguard saw in Obubra showed that the people were ready to play host to the next batch of ex-militants and subsequent ones, as long as the ex-combatants do not constitute a problem to them.

The ex-militants training camp itself has been separated from the NYSC camp and the fencing is almost completed.

Alaibe said he did not like a situation where access road to the camp will be through a secondary school and so, access roads would be constructed to the camp. Soldiers and Mobile Policemen and other security agents are on ground and unlike the first phase, when the camp was a thoroughfare, the security agents conduct searches on visitors.

The Federal Government decided to train the ex-militants in Obubra because it wants to take them away from their locations to a distant place, where they would know that the programme is a serious affair and that is why the best experts on character reformation in the world were assembled to carry out the training.

With the training and certification by the experts, it’s expected that the international community, which has been following the amnesty and post-amnesty programme of the Federal Government, will not reject the ex-militants when they request for visa to travel to the United States, United Kingdom and other parts of the world in pursuit of a better future, as new societal role models in Nigeria.