Bakassi women in Cross River state have threatened to go naked in protest and cry to God if President Muhammadu Buhari fails to urgently re-settle them.
Former Presidential Adviser on National Assembly Matters, Senator Florence Ita-Giwa, who spoke on behalf of the frustrated women, in a statement made available to newsmen on Thursday, said that her people are not cowards and that their silence should not be mistaken for weakness.
She said that she has been busy pacifying the aggrieved women not to take laws into their hands because she sees President Buhari as a man of the people and as her own way of contributing to the unity of the nation.
Ita Giwa said that it was Bakassi land that was ceded and not the people and that they made a choice to remain as Nigerians, regretting that 11 years after, over 4,000 refugees are still wallowing in poverty and suffering because the Federal Government has failed to properly resettle them in their choice location where they registered and voted for their choice candidates during the previous elections.
She said that Bakassi people and the entire people of Cross River State are suffering since the loss of their oil wells and other benefits.
The statement reads in parts: “I am using this medium again to protest the insensitivity of the Federal Government to our collective plight as Bakassi people.
“As far as I know, Bakassi Local Government Area is still in Cross River and it’s constitutionally catered for like every other council areas but sadly we have been neglected. Even the host community has suffered a lot of inconveniences and they are not being encouraged in any way with social facilities.
“The Buhari administration is busy rebuilding the North East but feel so unconcerned about the Bakassi people inspite of the fact that our situation existed before Boko Haram.
“Did we commit a crime by choosing to remain in our fatherland? Why rebuild North East and abandon Bakassi? My people are refugees and they should be rehabilitated.” [myad]
