Indication that the Federal Government is going ahead to honour its commitment to the international agreement entered into by former President Olusegun Obasanjo on behalf of the country to completely withdraw its authority from all parts of the Oil rich Bakassi peninsular by August 2008, emerged Thursday with the inauguration of a reconstituted resettlement committee in Calabar, the Cross River State capital.
The reconstituted resettlement committee has fifteen members and is headed by the Special Adviser to the President on National Assembly Matters, Senator Florence Ita-Giwa, an indigene of Bakassi. No reason was given on what led to the reconstitution of the committee, with barely five months remaining to the August deadline, but analysts believe it may not be unconnected with the need to harmonise contending interests by politicians over actual area of relocation.
Inaugurating the committee in the Executive Chambers of the Cross River State Government, the State Deputy Governor, Barrister Efiok Cobham read out five main terms of reference with their sub-terms including taking a preliminary census of the number of persons/families to be evacuated; make-shift accommodation/housing needs in the short-term period and long-term period; Re-integration of the displaced persons into their economic source of livelihood through the provision of fishing nets, arable land for farming, soft loan for petty trading for women; and financial assistance to the traditional institutions for the relocation of ancestral shrines/relics.