Stop misleading public on Bakassi issues – Group urges Ita-Giwa

A former presidential aide to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo on National Assembly matters, Senator Florence Ita-Giwa, has been called upon to desist from further misleading the public.

Mainland Block of Bakassi Local Government Area made the call in their press statement issued to disclaim Ita-Giwa’s claims over a private TV station that 34,000 voters were disenfranchised during the last general election in the area and that Bakassi has no form of social amenities.

The statement was signed by Mr Victor Eyo Harrison, Assistant Secretary, and Chief Michael Efa Henshaw, Director, Community Mobilization.

The group disclaimed Ita-Giwa’s position that Dayspring Island, near Cameroon, was part of Bakassi, adding that it is a temporary coastal fishing settlement occupied by about 100 itinerant fishermen who are non-Cross Riverians.

“The area she refers to as Dayspring is not Bakassi Local Government Area. It is a temporary coastal fishing settlement completely occupied by a scanty Itinerant fisherman – most of whom are predominantly non-Cross Riverians – a scanty and itinerant population of about a hundred persons at a time.

“Her claim that 34,000 voters were disenfranchised is contrary to INEC records of registered voters in Bakassi Local Government Area.

“Her claim that she spiritedly fought for the emergence of the member House of Assembly member-elect is not true. All the votes that produced the winning results of the House of Assembly member from the area came from Mainland Bakassi – resettlement camp.”

The group further faulted Ita-Giwa when she claimed she sent boats to convey people from the Republic of Cameroons – the ceded Riverine Bakassi, to vote in Dayspring Fishing settlements.

‘It is also untrue that the houses built in the resettlement camp by Governor Ben Ayade to accommodate the Bakassi Returnees were, in her words “pulled down” by the EndSARS protesters.

“These houses were only vandalized and this vandalization was not caused by the host communities. ”

They said it was not true that she came around to rescue the occupants of the resettlement camp in Bakassi during the EndSARS looting and vandalisation, adding that she was not even in the country then.

They called on her to enlighten Nigerians on the locations of her acclaimed 70 polling units that produced zero vote in the Presidential and National Assembly elections, and 17 votes in the governorship and House of Assembly elections – held on 25th February, and the 18th of March, 2023 respectively in her Dayspring axis of Bakassi.