After the 2022 communal war leading to killings and destruction of properties worth millions of naira, hundreds of displaced local residents of Ikot Okure and Ikot Obiofung, communities in Ibesikpo Asutan Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State have received succour from the State Emergency Management Committee (SEMA).
The deputy governor, Obong Moses Ekpo, who doubles as the chairman of the State boundary committee, presented the items including roofing sheets and other building materials to the victims, as well as foodstuffs such as rice, garri, beans, vegetable oil, cash and other edibles.
Presenting the items at Nnung Udoe, the council headquarters, the Deputy Governor, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary in his office, Mr. Nkopuruk Ekaiko, charged the beneficiaries to effectively utilize the facilities to cushion the negative effects such untold hardship the war had inflicted on them.
Assuring them of government determination to address the core issues in dispute, Ekpo, who wondered why brothers and sisters in the same ancestral locations could engage each other in bloody conflicts, appealed for peace and harmony amongst the warring communities, noting that “no developments can take place under an atmosphere of strife.”
He, therefore, charged stakeholders entrusted with the relief materials to ensure equitable distribution to only those the items were meant for, even as he warned against any backlash that could further stoke the embers of violence, and a regeneration of the conflict
However, the LG chairman, Mrs. Akon Michael, who took the delivery of the materials on behalf of the victims, commended the administration of Governor Udom Emmanuel, for the gesture, maintaining that “the intervention will go a long way to assuage the loss and heal the wounds of the displaced war victims.”
She said the items would be properly shared dispassionately without bias to the beneficiaries and pleaded with them to sheathe their swords in order to avoid more bloodshed, destruction and social dislocation.
