When the Federal government in obedience to the international court judgement in 2002, which favoured Cameroun, repatriated the Bakassi people to their home states, mostly Bayelsa State, hundreds of lives were shattered.
The Federal Government was compelled to cede oil and gas rich Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroun after decades of bloody contestation.
Twenty years after the court decision that upturned their lives in a place they and their forebears called home, many still live in a state of limbo in Yenagoa and other places. writes Preye Okah, who has been following the travails of the Bakassi returnees.
Sarah Ezekiel, is a 23 year old secondary school graduate who wants to study mass communication. Her major obstacle is finance. At present she and her family barely get by.
“For this life, they said you must suffer. That is what we have been doing. We pick bottles to sell, including the old women. Our mothers trained us to be hustlers. So, we struggle and from there, we pay our school fees. I want to go to university but no money. If the government can sponsor my university education, I will be very grateful and I promise to make them proud”.
Sarah is a child of one of the Bakassi returnees, who found themselves deposited in Bayelsa State following a United Nations resolution of the dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon over a stretch of the Bakassi Peninsular.
Like her, many children are trapped in this web of victims of government agreements that do not weigh options properly, before being assented to neither do they take care of the human factor.
That decision which relied heavily on a wartime agreement between then Nigerian head of state, Gen Yakubu Gowon ceding that part of Nigeria inhabited by citizens from Cross River, Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa, created a major upheaval in the lives of the affected inhabitants.
Mostly peasant fisher folks, the hand over meant an end to their normal life, an end to their livelihood. Though the instrument that displaced them made some provisions for their settlement, for the Bayelsa returnees, none of these has been honoured. They have been struggling with the trauma of displacement and being dumped in a place, where no one really cares.
Left to their fate, the stronger ones have tried to move on but a significant number are left in the lurch, clutching at claws, doing anything to survive and in very filthy, unhealthy conditions.
They were initially over 12,000 but today, about 800 of them are trapped in the Cameroun Camp along Azikoro road Ekeki in Yennagoa, the Bayelsa State capital.
While most say they can’t trace their root, others complain that they have no means to move on with life soY they have continued to stay in very filthy environment that is at best fit for only some animals.
No structures have been set up for the returnees. Instead they set up shanties made from picked zinc sheets, wood, used banners, etc. They also lack facilities like water, toilets, etc. forcing them to defecate and urinate anywhere.
“They poo at the camp. Urinate at the camp without any good or portable water to drink. No good road network as they use makeshift wooden bridge to get to their camp”.
Expectedly, many have lost their lives to water and airborne diseases that crop up because of the poor state of environment.
Since there have been no attempt by government to help reintegrate them into society, idleness has become the order of the day for the men while the women take to scavenging of dustbins. Others have gone into prostitution while the children are being churned out adding to the pool of the vulnerable.
Sarah and her like survive through hustling-picking bottles for recycle from dustbins, offering labour to those who need them, peddling wares if they have enough money to buy wares. The general story is that they are drenched in poverty, not knowing where their next meal will come from and not living in an environment conducive enough to enable thinking up ideas that can cause them to break out from the enveloping poverty. Worst still is the fact that they are from a state that is rich in oil and gas and with a population small enough for its wealth to touch all.
Though they are not considered important enough to be written into development policy, their votes matter during elections. But their needs are not much-housing, water, good road, empowerment to be able to fend for themselves again.
Now, they are asking for a low cost house that they can move into as was done for their counter parts in Cross River.
Vice Chairman of the Bayelsa State Bakassi returnees camp, John Sunday said:
“We have so many challenges. As you me, I’m just coming from toilet, an uncompleted building. We don’t have any toilet. No road, we walk on monkey-bridge. We need jobs. We do menials jobs before we eat. Our wives pick from dustbins before we eat in a day. The federal government, even private individuals and state government should assist us”.
Another returnee, Burutu Felix said, “The most important thing is for the federal and state government to build low cost houses for us, like two-bedroom flat for each family. We need competent teachers to come and teach our children”.
Chairman of the camp, Mr Franklin Bani said, “We are just managing. Don’t ever say that Bayelsa State government is helping us because after the election they abandoned us. We don’t have any godfather. During the election, they will come and give us food, after that, they will abandon us. We don’t even have toilet, no water. Any water we see, we drink, no light, most times no road. Let the governor help us with solar system.”
Painting the picture of the state government intervention clearly, Shool Steven, secretary of the Bakassi Returnees, a father of four children said, “They once gave us money to go back to our communities; that type of thing is not done anywhere. If the state government is sincere, we don’t want to bandy words with anybody. When we came, they fed us for three days. Later on, they said we should go to our local government headquarters and there they gave us N10,000 and you know they gave us three days to vacate Bakassi so nobody took anything.
“We became helpless. But, the Bayelsa State government is not taking this serious. Cross River and Akwa Ibom state government gave the National Boundary Commission 10 hectares of land to build houses for the returnees but here, the zonal coordinator of the Refugee Commission called Bayelsa SEMA chairman, he didn’t pick our call.
“The state is not helping matters. We are only pleading that they help us. I don’t know if we have offended Bayelsa as Ijaw people to come back home. Like me, they buried my father there (Bakassi) So, to locate my family is not easy. Even if you meet your second cousins, they cannot give you land. Even though our matter is not only state government let them help us and forward or case to the federal government”.
He reiterated that the suffering is leading the people to danger especially, the young ones and called on government to quickly intervene.
According to him, the governor’s wife visited and promised that they would be relocated but nothing has happened.
“Because of suffering, we are exposed to prostitution, snake bite, even bad boys may be coming up in future. These boys may become vandals. We are only begging and we know that miracle government is a hearing government. The governor’s wife gave us money to rebuild our monkey bridge. She brought somebody from ministry of Lands and Housing to take estimate saying that she was going to relocate us.
“They came and took all our details. We are only waiting for her to implement it because we are ready to vote for her husband for the second tenure.
“The total number of Bakassi returnees then was 12 887 but those staying here presently are 715 only in this camp. Anybody you see in the dump picking bottles is a Bakassi returnee and you know that we are professional fishermen so some are hanging around the communities like Soku River, Nembe. By December, they will come back. We are now very organized and we are thankful to NGOs, churches that have been helping us.
“The state government should help by taking our case to the National Commission for Refugees, Migrant and Internally Displaced Persons let them give them land so that they will build houses for us like what Cross River did.
“We have graduates and WAEC holders here. Let them give our youths jobs even if it is police recruitment. The people in the government don’t want to include us if not we are very ready to work.
“As a fourth class citizen after training your children as a jobless man, they have come out as BSc holders, now is it not for the state government through SEMA to help them because the governor cannot do everything? Let them help us”, the distraught Bakassi returnee pleaded.
The public relations officer of the Bayelsa Bakassi returnees, Bedford Osobokeme on his part, said he could not the government didn’t try but he asked for more help.
He said “We cannot say that they are doing the best but they are trying. The federal is trying; the state government is also trying a little. Even the past government and this one have agreed to do something according to the promises; we are still liaising with them.
“We can’t just talk about them at this moment although they didn’t try for our state. I know that it is not easy. We are still crying to them to come to our aid.
“The first lady came and collected our data since two years ago. She said she was going to relocate us. This is the second year, I don’t know whether they are fast tracking something although when the time of politics draws near, they will always come and give us promise and immediately they get to the throne, they abandon us”, stated.
The chairman of the state emergency management agency, Walaman Igrubia couldn’t be reached as he neither picked his calls nor responded to our text messag
