Nigeria: FG to Build Additional 10,000 Houses for Displaced Persons

Daily Trust

29 June 2011

Nigeria: FG to Build Additional 10,000 Houses for Displaced Persons

Calabar — The Federal Government would build additional 10,000 houses for displaced Bakassi residents, Secretary to the Cross River State Government, Ntufam Fidelis Ugbo has said.

Addressing newsmen in Calabar, Ugbo said this was part of efforts by the Ministry of Niger Delta to help the displaced persons, especially those who did not benefit from the ones built at Ekpri-Ikang in Bakassi.

He said the government would not discriminate between indigenes of the state and others from other Niger Delta states that were affected when the original Bakassi was handed over three years ago to Cameroun, courtesy of the Green Tree Agreement.

He added that Bakassi people have requested the state government to sand-fill the Day-Spring Island to enable them move there, but that the cost to do that is beyond the state and even the Federal Government.

Ugbo however said that the state government has appealed through the UN Mixed Commission to the United Nations for help so that the Bakassi people, who were displaced following the handover of the island to Cameroun three years ago, would be resettled.