From JUDEX OKORO, Calabar
Succour may soon come the way of Bakassi returnees, as African Nations Development Programme (ANDP), and the Cross River Government are partnering on how to provide 5,000 free housing units for the displaced natives.
The project, funded by the ANDP, with government providing 250 hectres of land, is intended to not only help the poor children of Bakassi, but to build a future generation and develop a city for the down trodden. The city, when completed, is expected to have a modern primary and secondary schools, as well as hospital. Besides, it would also have skill acquisition centre to train the people to be self-reliant.
Speaking shortly after performing the ground-breaking ceremony at Ikpa Nkanya village, Ikot Eyo Ward, in Akpabuyo Local Government Area, Governor Ben Ayade said the project was a product of his weeping openly before international organisations and institutions:
“The Bakassi people have been dislocated from their ancestral homes, denied the pleasure of worship and decent accommodation, reduced in want and in spirit, just because they are not strong enough to fight back.
“I come as a child from that humble beginning, to say that we must all come together to make a difference, and that difference must start now.”
“While we wait for ANDP, we will hold the fort, Cross River will also give the stimulus so that ANDP will recognise the fact that they have attracted us to support them.
“Besides, it is also natural in scientific agglutination that we must all come together and prove that indeed, we have come to support them, not just by doing the ground-breaking, but also, getting to the ground and starting the construction.”
He questioned the importance of government, if people are living in pains and penury, while leaders sit back, hoping that the problem will be addressed, with passage of time. He said the problem could only be addressed, when government take positive steps to stop them.
He urged the citizens to sustain the peaceful disposition of the state, while putting an end to internal crisis, in order to drive the programme: “In no distant time, Bakassi will be a city centre, were people will like to live.”
ANDP Director-General, Ambassador Samson Omojuyigbe, lauded the government and people for being the first beneficiaries of the project, which includes 5,000 units of modern two-bedroom flats, hospitals, schools, church, shopping mall, market, fire station, among others.
He disclosed that ANDP is a subsidiary of the World nations Development Initiative, empowered to prosecute the project as its sole initiative: “Our interest is to put in check poverty, which is a complex phenomenon, indicated in the inability of man to survive.”
ANDP Country Director, Thomas Ajikwa, said: “ANDP works with the less privileged, indigent and excluded people in Africa, promoting values and commitment in civil society, institutions and governments, with the aim of achieving structural changes in order to eradicate injustice and poverty in Africa.”