Ita-Giwa cautions against power tussle in Bakassi
From Eno-Abassi Sunday, Calabar
AN appeal was on Monday made by the Presidential Adviser on National Assembly Matters, Senator Florence Ita-Giwa, to Bakassi people not to be pre-occupied with the issue of leadership in the area.
Ita-Giwa said that what Bakassi people should seek for now is not leadership but how to remain an integral part of Nigeria.
In a veiled reply to the statement issued last week by Essien Ekpenyong Ayi, who represents the area in the House of Representatives, Ita-Giwa told a cross-section of the people and politicians that the prime task at hand was how to ensure that Bakassi people remain Nigerians.
Last week, Ayi had chided Ita-Giwa, saying she was neither the leader of Bakassi people nor their spokesperson.
But when she delivered relief materials worth N10 million from the Federal Government to the people, she told them that the time was not ripe for leadership struggle of the area.
She, however, cleared the air that there was no leadership struggle between her and elected representatives of the people of the senatorial district, adding that the peninsula belongs to all of them.
While calling on political leaders from the area to close ranks and work for a common goal, she specifically tasked the young ones amongst them to brace up as leadership was a collective responsibility where willing parties volunteer to serve their people.
She regretted the spate of harassment that fishermen and the entire Bakassi people of the area have been subjected to on account of the World Court judgement, which has led Cameroun gardeners to constantly harass them.
Ita-Giwa, who represented the area in the Senate between 1999 and 2003, appealed to the people to remain calm as the Federal Government was doing everything to resolve the lingering problem through dialogue.
The materials were donated to the people by the Federal Government to ameliorate their suffering in the wake of the torpedo on their fishing pot by the gardeners.
The items donated to the people included 600 bags of rice, 600 bags of beans and same number of bags of garri.
Others were 2,000 tins of milk, 300 tins of vegetable oil, 200 bags of salt, 200 cartons of bar soap, 200 cartons of detergent, 2,000 pieces of mosquito net and assorted drugs.
