Nursing mother feeds on garri

The expectation of a baby often brings excitement and joy. But for displaced Bakassi indigenes camped in dilapidated and overcrowded classrooms in Akwa Ikot Eyo Edem village, the birth of a newborn baby cause them anxiety and sorrow.


Nkese with her baby, Bright

Thirty five-year-old Nkese Peter gave birth to her fifth child, Bright, on September 27 in the camp. On sensing the economic burden the new-born baby would have on the finances of the poor family, Nkese’s husband, Simon, a Bakassi fisherman before their displacement, tried to make ends meet by taking to small scale farming.

But bad yields, occasioned by his inexperience with the agricultural activity, had made him record successive losses. Compounding their woes is the alleged failure of the Cross River State Government to provide the camps with food and other relief materials for three months running.

To keep body and soul together, Nkese, a nursing mother, now survives on garri daily. Yet, medical experts are of the opinion that a staple food like garri would do little in boosting the production of milk, a newborn is expected to feed on.

“Feeding is my major challenge. I’m facing hunger. I eat once in a day and that is garri, which I drink once in a day. The simple question I want to ask the authorities is: When are they coming to see us and resettle us? We are really suffering. We need assistance; we are not finding it easy staying here,” the distraught mother of five said in an emotion-laden voice.

Like mother, like son

Following a request by our correspondent, the only resident nurse in the camp, Patricia Asuquo, agreed to examine Nkese and Bright.

“They are both anaemic,” the medical official declared, as she pulled their lower eyelids down one after the other.

Facing two months old Bright, whose body was covered with rashes, Asuquo explained that the poor nutrition of her mother was telling greatly on his feeding and resistance to “little illnesses and body reactions.”

“The baby is not sucking any nutrients from the mother. The mother is malnourished herself, so what do we expect from the child?” Asuquo lamented.

The medical official who is in the employ of the state government explained that the poor nutrition of the displaced persons, coupled with the poor sanitary and unhealthy condition of the camp, was dealing a devastating blow to their health.

Health centre without drugs

Yet, the health centre which the nurse solely oversees had run out of drugs as of December 1 when our correspondent visited there. The only drugs she dispensed were Paracetamol and Vitamin C to patients suffering various ailments such as pneumonia, typhoid and malaria fever.

“There is no drug, there is no food. My job was easier when there were drugs. Many of their children have rashes and poxes but there are no anti-biotics to treat them. The situation is that bad.

“I think they need to experience a better life than this. Many of those suffering ailments simply lie down helplessly,” she added as she took our correspondent on an inspection of the health centre.

While expressing concern over the condition under which they live, the nurse lamented that attending to over 3,000 displaced persons in the two camps was overwhelming.

One of her major challenges, she added, was the fact that she had not had a break since 2013 when she was posted to oversee the provision of primary health care to them.

“I’m overwhelmed. That is my challenge. As a health staffer, I am supposed to run shifts and have some off days. But since I resume here in 2013, I work from morning till evening and at times I spend the night in the stuffy health centre. No offs, no shifts, no leave, no inconvenient allowances. The way they abandoned them, they have also abandoned me,” Asuquo said.

A 69-year-old widow, Bassey Eyo, lamenting the untoward hardship she had been going through since she returned from the ceded Bakassi peninsular, asked if it was fair for them to be on the receiving end of “utter neglect.”

“I have enough firewood to cook but there are no foodstuffs. How long would I continue to sleep on empty stomach?” she asked, bursting into tears.

Leader of the Bakassi returnees in the camp, Mr. Etim Ene, said the aged in the camp now “look haggard occasioned by hunger and want.”

According to him, the young returnees desperate to eke out a living are now being recruited by politicians as thugs.

“It is running into months now since food was distributed to us in this camp. Many of us have become sick due to poor nutrition. The sick ones among us go to the various churches for feeding and healing.

“It is saddening that the state government has totally abandoned the people of Bakassi. No help from the agencies. The hunger is much especially among the elderly ones.”

But the authorities are always quick to boast having resettled and rehabilitated many Bakassi returnees while also claiming to have equipped them with skills capable of making them self-reliant.

‘We are also hungry’

However, hundreds of returnees at the Obutong and Ikot Efiom resettlement centres, Bakassi Local Government Area, disagreed with the authorities during a visit by our correspondent.

The returnees in the two resettlement centres were the first set of displaced indigenes that left the ceded territories in October 2009.


Inside the refugee camp

They moved into the mini-flats in the resettlement centres built by the Cross River State Government in January 2010.

In spite of what many would describe as a kind gesture from the government, the “resettled” returnees described themselves as “political orphans.”

General Coordinator of the two centres, Prince Aston Joseph, said, “I hate to hear that we have been resettled. They provided over 2,800 households with 343 mini-flats and they call that resettlement.

“Bakassi people are fishermen and we marry more than one wife and give birth to a large number of children. They allocated us empty houses with no facilities. The only property given to each household is a single bed.

“Can you imagine how a family with between eight to 15 children will share a bed? When we moved in here in 2010, they only fed us for three months and since then, they abandoned us.

“No food, no rehabilitation, no resettlement. Their talk of empowerment is untrue. They only brought forms for skill acquisition and we filled and returned to them but we haven’t heard from them ever since. None of the skill acquisition programmes has been implemented here.”

Death by starvation

Lamenting the toll of hunger on the Bakassi indigenes, secretary of the returnee association in the two resettlement centres, Linus Asuquo-Essien, said one of them died of starvation in September.

The deceased, 38-year-old Edet Archibong, was said to have been complaining of starvation for weeks and had been living on food donations from his co-returnees.

“We complained to the Bakassi Local Government officials and the state government about the state of affairs with Archibong but they did not respond. People were tired of fending for him so he was left alone.

“At a point he took ill and his condition deteriorated in August. Those people who used to support him thought he had Ebola and everyone distanced themselves from him. The government officials refused to come and we lost him in the process.

“We requested that the government people should arrange for his burial, but they refused to heed our call. We had to procure gloves and we did the interment ourselves,” Asuquo-Essien explained at the site where Archibong’s remains were interred.

But the Cross River State Government said it remained committed to providing the displaced Bakassi indigenes with “mass care” and prioritising their “basic needs”.

Officials at the Governor’s Office, however, noted that it was true that the displaced Bakassi people housed in schools-turned camps in Akpabuyo Local Government Area had stopped receiving food and other relief materials since September.

‘No food for Bakassi refugees anymore’

Director General State Emergency Management Agency in the Cross River Governor’s Office, Vincent Aqua, blamed the development on the resolve of the state government to replace the distribution of food and relief materials with “conditional cash transfer of N5,000” to each household.

“We decided to replace it (foodstuffs and relief materials) with conditional cash transfer. It is easier and it helps them more as they can determine what they want to do with the money they are given.

“The Cross River State Ministry of Social Welfare is where the conditional cash transfer is domiciled and they are working out the modalities and any moment from now they would start getting it,” Aqua said.

He argued that he was aware the Bakassi returnees’ health would have been deteriorating due to starvation. “They could have a drop in their health status in very recent times. But their health condition is not too bad,” he added.

According to the SEMA DG, the Bakassi returnees in Obutong and Ikot Efiom resettlement centres have been resettled and would no longer enjoy the distribution of relief materials.

“We can no longer give food to people at the resettlement centre. They have been given accommodation and equipped with skills and empowerment tools. You cannot begin to carry out rehabilitation for people who have been resettled by the government,” he said.

Waiting for the UN

While thousands of Bakassi indigenes have since relocated from the ceded territories and returned to Nigeria to pick up the pieces of their lives after their displacement, hopes of reintegration have continued to elude them.

Sadly, as thousands of them look forward to being economically empowered and become financially self-reliant, there are no accurate statistics of the number of displaced indigenes who have yet to be resettled.

Aqua acknowledged that there was “no clear cut programme” that has been put forward for the resettlement of thousands of Bakassi refugees who have yet to be catered for.

“We have not compiled their statistics. When there is a programme we will begin to compile data to fit into the plan,” he added.

Noting that Cross River State had been carrying out “humanitarian disaster management” which runs into millions of naira, the SEMA DG lamented that the Federal Government had done little to alleviate the suffering of the Bakassi indigenes.

He explained that the state government was now looking up to the United Nations to help resettle the thousands of displaced indigenes with a view to giving them a new life.


FG’s reaction

When contacted on the efforts by the Federal Government to permanently resettle the Bakassi refugees, Director of Press and Public Relations, Federal Ministry of the Interior, Alhaji Ade Yusuf, said, “I don’t have any information about that. If I find out, I will get back to you.”

But the National Emergency Management Agency explained that it was not aware that Bakassi returnees in housed in refugee camps and resettlement centres were starving.

NEMA South South Zonal Coordinator, Mr. Ben Oghena, told our correspondent that the Federal Government through the agency had over the years distributed “quantum of relief materials” to the returnees.

“The Cross River State government has not told us that they have been overwhelmed. They should tell us. Then we can see how we can support what the state government is doing,” Oghena stated.

Noting that NEMA had not been treating the plight of the refugees with levity, the NEMA boss observed that the agency in collaboration with relevant government agencies were looking at “permanent solutions” to the problems of the Bakassi people.

“It’s (Bakassi returnees displacement) taking too long and it’s the state (Cross River) and their local government can tell us what the plan is. The land where they will be resettled must be provided by them because it is not the Federal Government that will do that,” he added.

In 1994, the Republic of Cameroon led by its President Paul Biya, brought a case before the International Court of Justice to rule on the sovereignty of the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsular.

Before then, there had been decades of border skirmishes and palpable tension between Nigeria and Cameroon which almost degenerated into a war in 1980.

After eight years of legal tussle at The Hague, Netherlands, the ICJ in its judgment dated October 10, 2002, ruled that “sovereignty over the Bakassi Peninsula lies with Cameroon.”

The caveat, which followed the ICJ verdict, was that the judgment was “final, without appeal and binding for the parties (Nigeria and Cameroon).”

On August 14, 2008, Nigeria formally handed over the oil rich peninsular to Cameroon, withdrawing troops from the hitherto disputed region whose population are predominantly Nigerians of the Annang, Efut, Efik and Ibibio ethnic stocks.

source: http://www.punchng.com/news/bakassi-refugee-father-uses-daughter-as-collateral-for-n600000-loan/

Make them find work do like everybody. Every Nigerian is a refugee because of PDP, every Nigerian works too to put food on their table. They are not special,so should work too.

That's really sad.

GMB will soon come up with a promise to build a two bedroom flat apartment for each of the families and place all of them on salary for life if elected.

very sad

Things you see on the news these days.

Op...why didn't you summarize this whole thing now.... Its too long ooo

Early tuesday morning for that matter.

It is well ooo.This should be the responsibility of a responsive government.Not one with its leader going to UK for private trip when his people are suffering.

Fight for yourself. No one is gonna fight for you.

na state government day do everything , na fg day take credit

Now I don't know what to comment,just bring back bakasi....that's all

Lost tribes of nigeria

Too bad this is happening just when elections are around the corner. Nigerian politicians are known to abandon everything else to concentrate on their selfish interests at times like this.

Hope someone somewhere pays attention and do what needs to be done to forestall mass starvation.

Imagine. Must the government be faulted everytime? The government is making enough efforts for you. Resettled you, built miniflats for each family, with a bed and mats for each family, fed you for three solid months, and you are complaining that a miniflat is not enough for you bevause you are fishermen who marry many wives and have large families. Arrant nonsense. Come to Lag and see guys sleeping under the bridge and in makeshift apartments, hussling for their future and you sit there complaining. Mtcheewww. People die in poverty when they assume that the government owes them anything.

Why nt come home n stop disgracing dis country outside

Wot do I comment now?

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Beware of my son Mohammadu 

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The suffering of the Bakassi people continues.

God help dem

We are treated like slaves in our own land..
Nigerians need to save themselves from all forms of slavery-spiritual, physical, mental etc..

danaiks:
Op...why didn't you
summarize this whole
thing now.... Its too long ooo
Early tuesday morning for that matter.

this one too calls himself the leaders of tommorow. Smh! Lazy generation!

.
May the Good Lord Almighty God shelter them, heal them, comfort them and provide for them through compassionate fellows or any means in thy name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth..

X

What a pity.

OBJ has caused more harm than good to this country

refugees in their fatherland. hmmmm

html14java:
Wot do I comment now?

My Chari.ty Comment

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мémьея, SвAи

haha stop detailing a thread dat calls for concern

Eh ya, so sad!

story for the gods, go and tell that to buhari

Holy Jesus... Our Nigerias are suffering oooooo lols

jingh:
haha stop detailing a thread dat calls for concern

Yes mummy