Ernest Chinwo
24 February 2008
Lagos — On Saturday, January 26, 2008, the Cross River State Government, through the State's Independent Electoral Commission (CROSIEC) conducted elections into the Bakassi Local Government Council. The elections, held in controversial circumstances, brought to the fore the disagreement among people of the traumatised area and highlighted the battle within the enclave.
Circumstances of the elections were as dramatic as the outcome because even before the elections, the people of the area had started singing cacophonous tunes among themselves. Indeed the first sign of trouble came from the State Government when in events leading to the State's Local Government Elections on November 3, 2007, Governor Liyel Imoke said elections would hold only in 17 out of the 18 Local government areas in the state.
He explained that Bakassi was excluded in the elections because there was no administrative structure on ground in the new Bakassi headquarters at Ekpri Ikang. He said government was still in the process of building the local government headquarters and other infrastructure that would enable a government operate in the area, stressing that until that was achieved it would be wasteful to elect officers who would have no where to operate from.
In his words, "first of all, we need to put an administrative structure on ground. If a chairman and counselors are elected and they have no office, nobody will know what the funds allocated will be used for." But while announcing results of the elections, the Chairman of CROSIEC, Sir Patrick Otu said elections did not hold in the new Bakassi Local government Area created by the State Government because of a court injunction restraining the Government from conducting elections in the area until issues pertaining to the resettlement of the people and the status of Abana, headquarters of the ceded Bakassi Local Government Area, before the Federal High Court, Calabar were resolved.
However, while the Chairman of CROSIEC seemed to be giving a different reason from that of the Governor for the botched elections in the area, the Chairman was to say that the injunction had elapsed when he announced elections for the Council for January 26, 2007.
The real crack however became obvious on the day of the scheduled elections in the area when prominent politicians and opinion holders from the Peninsula shunned the elections on the grounds that it was a violation of the injunction issued by Justice Shuaibu Yahuza of the Federal High Court, Calabar that elections should not hold in the New Bakassi until the matter before the Court concerning the proper resettlement of the displaced people from the area ceded to the Republic of Cameroon was heard and determined.
They argued that until the matter brought before the Federal High Court by some political actors from the old Bakassi namely Hon. Okon Archibong Isemin, Hon. Bassey Ita Edet, Hon. Effiong Edet Effiong, Mr. Samuel Asuquo and Prince Edem Nsa, that any elections in the area was illegal and unacceptable to the people. Indeed, the petitioners had written to CROSIEC days before the election reminding the Commission that the injunction was still in place.
Those conspicuously absent during the elections included the Special Adviser to President Umaru Musa Yar'adua on National Assembly Matters, Senator Florence Ita-Giwa; former chairmen of the Council, Ani Eric Esin, Emmanuel Etene, Bassey Ita, and some former political office holders from Bakassi.
Addressing the press shortly after the elections, Senator Florence Ita-Giwa said she stayed away from the election because she did not want to be associated with illegality. She said she was aware that there is a court injunction since July 2007 against the conduct of election in the New Bakassi until certain issues as contained in a substantive matter before the Federal High Court were addressed.
She said it would have been against her conviction as a democrat and a law maker to participate in the elections knowing fully well that the exercise was not only against the wishes of the people, but also against an order of the court. She also said it was unfortunate that elections would be held in the area and the people of Abana, Atabong and other areas not yet vacated by Nigeria would be left out.
"My prayer is that elections should be held in the island of Bakassi (Abana, Atabong and others) because our people are still there. There's an injunction and until the injunction is addressed, I as a law maker will not take part in something that is illegal or out of order," she said.
Ita-Giwa, popularly called Mama Bakassi in the area, said displaced people from the Peninsula have a right to seek redress in court considering the hardship and deprivations they had been subjected to since being dispossessed of their ancestral homeland and that any attempt to gag them would be unfair.
In her words, "people will not want to be treated as if they are going into further slavery. I do not object to their request to be heard. They have their reasons. Their reason is how will you go and move the people in Abana and Atabong in the island to come and vote here in the new area you are talking about in Ikang? Those people are registered voters. During the last governorship elections and the presidential elections, we went there and they voted. They expect that since they have not yet been relocated, they could have gone there for them to vote. It is only Bakassi North that has left. The entire South is still there intact. So they are requesting to be allowed to vote there."
She dismissed as untrue insinuations that her people boycotted the election because her candidate was not chosen as the chairmanship candidate of the People Democratic Party (PDP), insisting that as a leader of the people she had never imposed candidates at any levels but would always insist on fairness to all. Ita-Giwa said it would be unfair in any situation for the chairman of a council to come from the same ward as his predecessor as that would not be in line with the principle of rotation which the PDP also subscribed to.
Former chairman of the Council, Emmanuel Etene also spoke in a similar vein. He accused the Paramount Ruler of Bakassi, Chief Etim Okon Edet of pursuing his personal interest as far as the relocation of the people and elections in the area are concerned. According to him, "I think the election is only a little aspect of what is befalling us. For those who want elections at Ikang, they are free to go ahead, especially the Paramount Ruler since he wants to be the paramount ruler of a kingdom that is not his own.
"But now, that he is the one championing the relocation for his own selfish ends, it is something I cannot understand. At a certain point in time, we should be able to subsume our own greed and stand by the side of the people because history will be there to judge whatever we are doing.
"I don't know what he is pursuing at this very moment where we are befallen with a greater tragedy than elections and political offices. Here we are waiting to be relocated. Of course, even the relocation thing is what I can not fathom. I have read the ICJ (International Court of Justice) judgment and there is no where they talked about relocation. Even the Green Tree Agreement (GTA) does not mention anything about the relocation of Bakassi people. I don't know where they got the idea from," he said.
On the elections, he said, "The election was not conducted for the people of Bakassi. Probably it was conducted for the people of Ikang. Everything about the elections is a fraud. One, there is subsisting court order that has been flouted. Incidentally the people flouting the order are the ones that are supposed to know than my self an ordinary fellow.
"The Governor of this state is a lawyer, the Deputy Governor is a lawyer, the Secretary to the State Government is a lawyer, the attorney general is a lawyer, the state electoral body ,CROSIEC, have lawyers working with them and they are suppose to know more then me. But they are the ones now trampling on the sanctity of the court," he stressed.
The immediate past vice chairman of the council, Mr. Udeme Effiong Okon and the immediate past secretary, Mr. Edem Effiong also supported the same view. For Effiong, what transpired as elections in Bakassi was laughable. "We heard the state electoral body CROSIEC went and delineated the Ikang area into ten wards and tagged numbers to them from one to ten. That is laughable because Bakassi is not urban, that can happen in Calabar South and not Bakassi that is rural," he said.
He said he served in a committee that identified possible areas of relocation of the people. "I had been privilege to serve in a committee where we had to identify possible areas of relocation for Bakassi people and we identified two areas one in Akpabuyo, a thick forest bordered by a river and another in Calabar; Asutan Iyata and we believe these are areas were government should have acquire for our relocation and not going to put us on top of other peoples head," he said.
But while Ita-Giwa and past political office holders of the Council seem to be on one side, the Paramount Ruler, Etim Okon Edet appears to be in control of proceedings at the new location and spitting fire against his opponents. Firstly, he has a word of admonition for those who oppose his stand.
"You know, normally you don't accuse a king or a traditional ruler. It's an abomination to do so. In some societies, if you do so, there are penalties to pay. So whatever the King does is right. So when I hear some of these things in our area I wonder. It's only in Akwa Ibom , Cross River, and parts of Rivers States that you hear this kind of story about a traditional ruler being accused in the public frivolously," he said during an interview.
He also berated those opposing his stand on the relocation of the people, stressing that as the traditional ruler, he is better placed to speak on issues about land. According to him, "Who should be talking about domain or land matter and all that? Is it the politicians or the traditional rulers? Like I said sometime, Ani Esin was there as council chairman, today he is no more but I am still there. If he had taken decision on relocation or on anything else, who will be a beneficiary?
"Like Senator Florence Ita-Giwa, she has a clan head, go and ask her clan head or you ask her, she will tell you that where ever her clan head or traditional ruler wants her to be she will be there. That she will have no objection in land matter. I am supposed to lead my people to a place that I will want them to go, not a place that they will want me to go. They should know that the place I will want them to go should be good for me and for them and generations to come.
"What you should know is that politicians don't get involved in land matters. It is something that will out-leave them. Former governor Donald Duke was there through this Bakassi thing and today he is no more, but some of us are still around. If he had taken any action that was not good enough for me, I will be the one to bear the brunt of it. So this issue of young men going about to say this is what I want or where I want is not obtainable. As for Iyata, they don't even know who owns the place. A hanging island; they want Bakassi to be hanging, that is not what we want," the traditional ruler further stressed.
He said Ita-Giwa and her followers are crying because they failed to impose their candidate on the people in the last Local government polls in the area. On the choice of Ikang as the new location of the local Government area, Edet said Ita-Giwa and other political leaders from the area were playing along with the last administration and convinced the people to accept the new location. He wondered why they were now turning around to reject the place.
"They saw it and they said it was alright. Who was the first person that took the people to Ikang? It was Florence herself. If there is anybody who has fought for Bakassi to have a say is myself. You should be aware that when I fought to a point, Florence came and told me, my paramount ruler I think it is enough let us find a middle course. She brought the document for us to sign. On that day I said this document I am signing; even Joe Etene said this document he is signing is under duress. Everybody signed and I told them; it was a document that Florence brought that we should sign accepting to go to Ikang," he said.
He dismissed fears that Ikang was already thickly populated and owned by a people and that the Bakassi people would turn to slaves in the area, stressing that the state government had revoked all titles to land in the area so that everybody was now equal settlers.
The Paramount Ruler said most of those opposed to relocation to Ikang were not indigenes of Bakassi, adding that the time had come for the people to know those who come from the area and those who are impostors. He said some people had cashed in on the plight of the people of the area to enrich themselves, but warned that the time was past as the people were now ready to expose those who had no business being called Bakassi people.
With the words of the paramount ruler, another battle may be brewing amongst the Bakassi people. While the political battle about their proper resettlement and relocation may be fought in Calabar, the state capital and Abuja, the Federal Capital, and may be beyond, the battle within may be more devastating if not nipped in the bud.
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