It a time, it brought hope and excitement, but today it seems to serve as a reminder of destruction and loss for some communities in Cross River State.
The superhighway project proposed by the Ben Ayade administration, was supposed to be an almost 300km road that will link up the entire state, running from Bakassi to Obudu.
For the Clan Head of Nsan Community in Akamkpa Local Government Area, Ntufam Saviour Ndifon Edem, their joy knew no bounds when they heard such a project was going to pass through their own backyard. Such was their joy that they did not even mind if some of their farmland had to be sacrificed for the realisation of such a project that would bring plenty of benefits to their community.
The Nsan people, who now doubt the sincerity of the government over the project, lamented that after the destruction of their farms and crops, they were just left hanging with no more talk of the project going on or compensation for what they had lost.
Ndifon, who spoke through a village council member, Ernest Ndifon, said: “Since the flag off the superhighway in 2015 by the President Muhammadu Buhari, along with our governor, Prof Ben Ayade, the bulldozers came in and bulldozed all our crops, both economic crops and till date, we have not heard anything from them again. The caterpillars they used to bulldozed, they came and picked them up and nobody hears about the superhighway any longer. All the crops have been destroyed. Like myself, part of my farm was gone, a palm plot of over five hectares of farm. And they came back again for another extension, which they shifted and said they were coming to extend and bulldozed again. As I speak with you people are still shedding tears because of the destruction of crops and nothing has come forth. We have been hearing on the radio that superhighway would come in and look election is fast approaching and there is nothing. So we don’t know our fate about the superhighway.
“They did not come with any agreement, rather we started asking whether as they are bulldozing, if they would pay for the crops being damaged? They told us that they would see about the damaged crops and economic trees. And we were thinking that after the bulldozing they would still come back and tell us how they would pay for the damaged crops. But till now as I speak with you, nothing has been done.
“But it is a very good dream if it came to pass really. For the good dream, we were even prepared to allow the farm goes. Everyone believed that more benefits would come from the superhighway. That was our mind about the project, but as I speak to you now, people are still shedding tears till today.
“We have people in the institutions that used to get their fees from the farms, now they are at home, because they are unable to pay fees again. Even normal feeding is a problem. About 95 per cent of our people have been affected by this problem.”
A youth from the Nsan Community, Mr Valentine Ofoebi, also complained: “The government has done very bad. They have destroyed our crops and kept the community in hunger because the crops that were there, our late fathers were using them to train us, but since this has happened, it has really affected all of us. Like my father died because of the shock of destruction of all our farms. In other places, when things like this happen, the government takes statistics of each person, whatever you have, they evaluate it and at the tail end, the government would pay compensation, but this government did not do that, so let them look into it.
“Last year a team of people came here and said we should write names of people what own the land, but up till now, we have not heard anything from anybody. That has been done but we have not heard anything from them.
“We cannot farm on the land they have bulldozed again. They have removed the topsoil and the land is barren. So government should look into it and come and pay us our compensation. That is what we are after.”
Also the Village Head of Okokori, another community the project was expected to traverse, Chief James Ayimobi, said since three years ago, when statistics of people to be affected was taken, no one had come back to tell them anything.
Ayimobi, who also spoke through a member of his palace, Ogar Francis Imoh, said: “They came to take the statistics of people that would be affected by the highway and since then we have not heard from them again. They said they we would hear from them after a one-week interval, but since then, we have not seen then.”
According to Ayimobi, from the start, they were not comfortable with the idea of entering their forests and farms to begin bulldozing for the project. He said what was more important to them was a proper assess road into the community which they lacked.
“Then we told them that if they must come, let him start from the corridor to give us access and since then we have not seen anything and since then, we are still on it. You have seen the corridor yourself while coming in. it is in poor state. Instead of the superhighway, let us have our corridor maintained first,” he said.
The woman leader of Okokori, Mrs. Emilia Joseph, said: “We want our lands return to us. The Federal Ministry of Environment has directed the state government to do the right thing but we are yet to see any action from the state level and we are inpatient because that is our heritage, our pride as forest owners. We want our forest back.”
Also sharing his feeling over the project, Mr Cosmas Ogar, from New Ekuri, Akamkpa, also a community affected by the projects said they had protected their forests for ages and it was with surprise that they saw bulldozers tearing down their trees three years ago.
According to Ogar, it seemed the intention was just to log timber from the forest, which the people had so carefully preserved over the years.
Ogar said: “It was on a very good day that we saw a bulldozer on our roads, a road that we in the community did through our own efforts, it was not a government assisted road. So we saw a bulldozer and by our investigation, we were made to understand that they were coming for superhighway, so we told them to go back and tell whosoever sent them that except and MOU is being laid on the ground, before the activity of the superhighway can be done. Since that day three years ago, in fact they had been a battle between the Ekuri people and the government. Ekuri community has been a conservative community in Cross River State and in Nigeria and the world. We are known. We are strictly on conservation and sustainable management. We were surprised why the government of the day wanted to break through our forests, the only forest sustaining the world, in the name of superhighway. So we had rejected it.
“We noticed that in some areas, like our brother community of Nsan in Akamkpa, were part of the bulldozing. After a while we discovered that all the timbers that were bulldozed were carted away. It was from there, we knew their interest was logging not just to do the superhighway.
A community leader in Etara community of Etung local government area, which was also bulldozed three years ago because of the project, Prince Simon Ifere, said: “From the time the whole clearing was done up till now, the area which was cleared has become bush again. The irony in the whole exercise so far was when it was immediately cleared we saw some foreign persons coming into exploiting our timber with nothing as compensation to the community. There was destruction farms, economic trees, the forest, the eco system was tampered with. In fact, the situation was too ugly. The whole system is so ugly. In fact you cannot deceive people in the name of development and in the end the reverse is the case. The entire area with economic trees has been destroyed.
“We cannot quantify the timber brought down from initial clearing and we cannot stop the exploitation because the forest has been opened up.
“We don’t have a representative to talk for us in government. We are by the way side and we don’t know what to do. Our road is very bad. During the rainy season the only way is on bikes, and even the bike will sink to engine level, government should come in and do the roads to enable us carry out our goods and farm produces.”
For Ayade, the blame should be taken by the Federal Government, which he urged last week to fast track the commencement of work on the project.
Ayade, who received the Chairman and members of the Bakassi Deep Seaport Inter-Ministerial Steering Committee in company of the project Transaction Financial Advisor, begged the Federal Government “to please give us the necessary approvals to fast track the execution of these dream projects that will not only enhance our economic status but also attract foreign earnings for the country because as a matter of fact, what we face today was orchestrated by them, occasioned by the ceding of Bakassi to Cameroun and they must support us to fine our bearing, given our comparative advantage as a coastal state.
“I plead with you to rescue the state from these economic woes by taking the assignment as a service to humanity and God. Please use your expertise to do the needful for the actualization of the projects. It was clear to me that as a maritime state, the only way forward was to create a sustainable economy, knowing the international trading history that Nigeria is the eleventh trading partner with China and as estimated by 2025 to 2030 Nigeria will be the top three trading partner with China. The implication is that, imports into the country will go up as Nigeria industrialises. Obviously, this country cannot afford to operate only one maritime gateway, which is Lagos. As we continue our desperate search for an alternative to Bakassi and subsequent loss oil wells, we came to this crystallized position that with the deep seaport and 275 kilometers superhighway as an evacuation corridor to northern part of Nigeria, we would have an anchor solution.”
For now, the people have lost their land and there is no superhighway to show for it.