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Stay away from Bakassi, indigenes warn minister
Ofonime Umanah
Paramount Ruler of Bakassi and chairman of the Bakassi Council of Traditional Rulers, Etinyin Etim Okon Edet on Friday expressed the bitterness of the Bakassi people with the Minister of Defence, Alhaji Rabiu Kwankwaso, over the minister�s alleged disrespect to the traditional institution.
Accordingly, the monarch has warned him not to visit the area again throughout his tenure as minister.
He also said that the Bakassi people would not vacate the area even if Federal Government decides to withdraw soldiers from the area.
The minister was in the local government last Friday to inform the soldiers currently protecting Nigerians there, to get ready for their withdrawal from the disputed territory, as parts of efforts to resolve the issue.
While on a courtesy visit to the Cross River State Governor, Mr. Donald Duke, the minister had spoken of his mission in the state, among them, to be in Bakassi to inform the soldiers of their planned withdrawal.
He was to convey the same message to journalists who spoke with him in the state capital before he moved to Bakassi.
But on Friday, the paramount ruler said it was wrong for the minister to go to Bakassi without bothering to see traditional rulers from the place.
In fact, he said it was disrespectful of the minister to have invited him to meet him at the officers mess of the Naval Base, saying even the president of Nigeria could not have gone to Kano, the minister�s home, for an official assignment and refused to look for the owners of the land.
Hear him: �The minister of defence insulted the people of Bakassi. He should not come here again. How can he visit our area for the very first time and refuse to pay a courtesy call on the traditional institution?
�To call the paramount ruler of Bakassi to come to the mess and see him was uncalled for. Tell him that he is a very uncultured man, that a paramount ruler cannot see him at the mess, that was not his palace.
�Our thinking is that Nigeria has already given us out, that was why the minister could come to Bakassi for the very first time and refused to meet the people�.
The paramount ruler recalled that the president had assured the Bakassi people shortly after the World Court judgement, that no inch of Bakassi would be ceded, adding,� we are holding the president by his words.
�As far as we are concerned in Bakassi, we will hold president Obasanjo by his words. The position of the president immediately the ICJ gave the judgement was that they will not concede one inch of Nigeria to any foreign country.
� So we are holding him unto that. He cannot now turn around to say that he wants to cede. In any case, we are preparing for them,� he would not, however, speak on the nature of the preparedness.
However, he expressed the hope that �Obasanjo will not just let us go like that. But we are angry with the minister. I don�t know why the man had to come there. As for Obasanjo, we know he is a honest man�.
He said even if the soldiers were no longer in the area to protect them, they would remain in the land he described as their ancestral home, stating that �the soldiers came there to meet us, so they can go and we will still be there.�
Sunday Punch, July 25, 2004
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