Vice President Mohammed Namadi Sambo yesterday constituted a committee that would work out the modalities for providing relief for displaced people of Bakassi.
The committee headed by the Deputy Governor of Cross River State, Effiok Essien Cobham is to be responsible for the resettlement process of the people who were turned refugees, following the ceding of Bakassi to Cameroun.
The vice president directed that the committee should within three months submit its report.
The decision was taken at a meeting of Committee on Bakassi and Plights of the displaced people, presided over by the Vice President.
Present at the meeting were the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar,? the National Security Adviser, Col Sambo Dasuki (rtd), DG National Boundary Commission,?? Executive Secretary BCDA, Senator Florence Ita-Giwa among others.
The committee headed by Sambo was set up by President Goodluck Jonathan in October when the Federal Government was under pressure to appeal the 2002 International Court of Justice judgment which ceded the oil rich Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroun.
Cameroun had reneged on its pledge to “continue to protect Nigerians living in the Bakassi Peninsula and in the Lake Chad area.”
As a result, indigenes of the community who chose to remain in Nigeria were left unsettled, these led to the influx of refugees into other communities.
Cobham told Journalists that the committee has as its duty to develop an entirely new settlement so as to find a lasting solution to the plight of the displaced people and settle them permanently.
He said, “Basically we discussed the issue of the resettlement of the displaced people of Bakassi and of course the Vice President in his wisdom has constituted a committee to look into the issues and the issues are quiet many, with me as a Chairman and the membership stretches? between the Federal and State officials including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, so that we can comprehensively look at the issues affecting the people of Bakassi and then submit a report to the Vice President on or before the end of? February 2013.