“The Bakassi Deep Seaport; a Nature gift to the Bakassi IDPs, Bakassi People, Cross River State and Nigeria at large.”- Senator Ita Giwa.
In the US Democratic National Convention recently, one of the speaker on day four, Rev. William Barber, the President of North Carolina NAACP. A leader in the fight against restrictive voting rights Laws in North Carolina, said, “In my heart I’m troubled, and I’m worried by the way that faith is cynically used by some to serve hate, fear, racism and greed.”
He continued, “Jesus, a brown-skinned Palestinian Jew, called us to preach good news to the poor, the broken, and the bruised, and all those that have been made feel unacceptable.”
I was quickly taken back to Senator Ita Giwa’s answer to a question during press briefing on May 27th, 2016. “How best can the government put to an end the sufferings of our Bakassi Internally Displaced Brothers?” Her answer was, “Government must first stop giving fish to the people which is what has been going on, for this has proven to be palliative measures, and start truly teaching the people how to fish through deliberate infrastructural development that will create an enabling environment for fishing.”
She added, “in all my time and period of fighting to see that my people are taken care of, the Bakassi Deep Seaport idea, came as a Nature gift for the IDPs, Bakassi People in general, Cross River State and indeed Nigeria at large.”
How does these relate to us as a people?
Rev. William said he represented no organisation but is a conservative who work to conserve the divine traditions that teaches us to do justice, love, mercy and work humbly with our God. He felt that the US Democracy is in Line, come November. To him, “a season when some want to harden and stop the heart of our democracy, all are called like our foremothers and fathers to be the moral defibrillators of our time.”
Patriotic Politics of Moral good standing for the rights of all, against our traditional Nigeria Politics of serving for ones pocket. The Good and the Bad. When in danger, we call the emergency code. Why? To get aid, relief and succour. Most times, these are only “palliative measures” as Ma Ita Giwa puts it. We normally shy away from the core primary causes and depend on the secondary causes, thereby, surface dressing issues.
Today, we have Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), among us, this is not the primary cause but secondary. And to solve a primary cause we must approach it with a primary solution. Primary solutions are not Political gimmicks or abracadabras.
Primary solutions requires Political and economic wills, desires, faith, integrity, honesty, character, courage, dexterity, ability and above all collaborations. Far away from looking for who to blame, creating excuses and alibis to justify our lacks when problems show their faces. Playing Death Politics with our very core norms of existence and growth.
Rev. Barber said, “We must shock this nation with the power of love. We must shock this nation with the power of mercy. We must shock this nation and fight for justice for all.”
The shock of the nation started 29th May 2015 with the pronouncement of the Governor Ayade “Signature Projects.” We must threrefore, without let up, keep shocking the nation with love, mercy and fight for justice for the Bakassi IDPs and Cross River State at large, as we stand up as one people to say yes to the superhighway and the Bakassi Deep Seaport.
As we fight to make sure these projects become a reality, we return our core norms of love, mercy and justice taken away not only from the Bakassi People, but from us all as a State. We must therefore, recreate our link with nature and accept her gifts. For as we do that, we are reviving the heart of our core heritage.
“Replace the I with We spirit, together we are stronger.”
~Inok Solomon
