A CALL FOR THE PROPER RESETTLEMENT AND COMPENSATION OF THE BAKASSI PEOPLE
Sponsor: Senator Gershom Bassey
The Senate
AWARE that 14 years after the ICJ judgment, the Federal Government of Nigeria has failed to properly resettle and compensate the people of Bakassi;
FURTHER AWARE that the failure to resettle and compensate the people of Bakassi has made them become refugees in their homeland with no form of livelihood and hope for posterity;
NOTES that the inexplicable vacillation in resolving the lingering crisis in the area is building up another humanitarian crisis as citizens in the area have no country to lean on at the moment;
FURTHER NOTES that the looming humanitarian crisis and the danger of statelessness of the people of Bakassi is becoming too burdensome for Cross River State;
OBSERVES that the Republic of Cameroon unlike Nigeria, have properly resettled its indigenes in the peninsula and have commenced effective development of its part of the peninsula;
FURTHER OBSERVES that militancy along the peaceful waters of Calabar has risen dramatically because some Bakassi youths who were hitherto fishermen have lost their livelihood and are engaged in various vices;
WORRIED that the loss of Bakassi has resulted in the loss of Nigeria’s eastern access to the Atlantic because Nigerian naval ships no more move freely to southern Africa without informing Cameroon;
FURTHER WORRIED that Bakassi’s oil wealth, natural gas, fisheries, palms and mangrove forest resources that have been ceded to Cameroon are worth several billion dollars;
CONCERENED that the Federal Government’s “First Aid Compensation” to Cross River State for the loss of Bakassi was not commensurate in anyway to the loss;
DISTURBED that the United Nations, Republic of Cameroon and particularly the Federal Government of Nigeria have devastated the Bakassi economy and the people, swelled the population of internally displaced persons and have ushered in a new dimension of poverty in Cross River State.
PRAYER
Urge the Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency, properly resettle the Bakassi people through a participatory and properly negotiated Resettlement Program;
Urge the Federal Government to urgently tackle the challenges of poverty, statelessness and deprivation arising from the continuous neglect of the Bakassi people;
Urge the Federal Government to carry out a proper valuation of the loss of Bakassi and work out a just and perpetual compensation to Cross River State.
Mandate the Senate Committees on Special Duties and Finance to invite the relevant agencies of government, committees and groups with a view to determining the extent of humanitarian crisis facing the Bakassi people.
I SO MOVE…
