by crossriverwatch admin
Large crowds of Bakassi returnees who are settled at Ikot Effiom and Obutong in Bakassi Local Government Area this morning trooped to Senator Liyel Imoke’s office to protest the nonpayment of their monthly stipends.
The placard carrying protesters claimed they have not been paid their monthly stipend called conditional cash transfer of N5000 per family for upward of twenty months which have resulted to their starving with many of them dying from sicknesses owing to lack of money to buy drugs.
Mr. Nathan Monday and Mrs. Agnes Offiong Eyo who spoke on behalf of the returnees said over seventeen children have died in their settlement this year occasioned by the lack of health care facilities and hunger. “We have no money, no food, no drugs and nowhere to fish because Cameroon has since stopped us from going into the sea to practice our trade”.
According to them, the state governor Senator Liyel Imoke has visited the settlement twice and on each of those occasions, he promised to render them assistance but none has been forth coming. “For over two years now the N5000 they used to give us every month we do not see again and each time we went to meet with the Commissioner for Social Welfare she tells us the governor has not approved and our children are dying daily so we are not going away from here until they pay us our money”.
When CrossRiverWatch visited the office of the Commissioner for Social welfare, Mrs. Patricia Enderly she was said to have gone to attend the weekly executive council meeting and several calls to her phone were not answered.
However, Ms. Edisua Usangiso, the Chairman of Bakassi who came to meet with the protesters in front of the governor’s office said she will rent buses to take them back to their settlement while she will make plans to find them jobs.
follow us on twitter @crossriverwatch
Leave feedback about this