STILL basking in the euphoria of the ceding of Bakassi Peninsula to it through the World Court ruling at The Hague in 2002, indication has emerged that Cameroun has perfected plans to claim the ownership of Obudu Cattle Ranch Resort in Obanliku Local Government Area of Cross River State.
However, the Cross River State government has described such claims as an empty threat, saying “it can never happen, because it is a day dream.”
Reacting to the development in Calabar, on Tuesday, the Director-General of the Cross River State Border Communities Development Commission (SBCDC), Mr Leo Aggrey, said the matter was still considered an unsubstantiated rumour by the state government..
According to Aggrey, “the Camerounians are threatening to take over the Obudu Ranch Resort, the Cross River State tourism haven. This is quite surprising and we are not treating this matter with levity. I have already forwarded a memo to the state governor, Senator Liyel Imoke, concerning this new threat.”
He, however, described the development as an “empty threat” as anything serious on that would have been decided at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague ‘’as was the case with the oil-rich Bakassi.’’
Aggrey, who noted that the nation’s loss of Bakassi to Cameroun was painful in terms of potential revenue from the area and the displacement of Nigerians resident in the area, maintained that “the state government would not fold its arms and allow Obudu Cattle Ranch to be illegally claimed again.”
On Bakassi, Mr Aggrey said the state government had continued to accord priority attention to the needs of the displaced Bakassi people in respect of their plight, stating that a number of projects had been outlined for them to cushion the effects of their relocation.
The DG said although the State Emergency Management Agency(SEMA) had addressed certain needs of the displaced persons, a lot more needed to be done to assuage them, stressing that his commission had outlined areas of priorities and needs that the government was poised to address for the displaced.
‘’Bakassi matter is a creation of the partition for Africa. And the Cross River State government is very passionate about the Bakassi people and the boundary areas of the state,’’ Aggrey added.
