story by vanguardngr.com
CALABAR—REACTIONS are still trailing the refusal of the Federal Government to appeal against the International Court of Justice, ICJ, ruling against the ceding of Bakassi, as Cross River State Chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, has accused President Goodluck Jonathan of speaking from both sides of his mouth.
In a statement on the refusal to appeal against the ICJ judgment that ceded the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon on October 10, 2002, which the government had a window of opportunity to appeal against, as provided for by the ICJ law, ACN said President Jonathan played pranks with the people of Bakassi.
In the statement, the Cross River State Chairman of the party, Mr. Hillard Eta, said: “In one breath, the President stated that the Federal Government would not review the matter but in another, he was busy setting up a committee to look into the review process.”
Eta alleged that the action of the President was a clear manifestation of the “consistent balkanization and merchandising of the Nigerian State by no less a force than the People’s Democratic Party, PDP-led government. The party is only interested in accumulating wealth and proceeds that emanate from the mortgaging of the country or a part of it. Unfortunately, this it does at the expense of the people it professes to represent.
“Sadly, the Bakassi people have fallen prey to the malfeasance and unholy merchandizing of the PDP, the issue being that rather than agitate strongly for the review of the ICJ judgment of October 2002, which ceded the ancestral home, or resettle them holistically in the light of the Green Tree Agreement, the government has used their ancestral land to once again swell their pockets leaving the people in squalor and endless plight.”