Worried by the communal crises plaguing parts of Akwa Ibom State and neighbouring States, the deputy governor of Akwa Ibom State, Obong Moses Ekpo, has urged the Federal Government to implement the recommendations of the National Boundary Commission (NBC) for peace in border communities.
To tame the recurrent boundary wars in the country, the NBC had stressed the need for collaboration with states to build factories on disputed lands to create jobs for the unemployed youths, who are used as tools during crisis situations.
Speaking in an interview with journalists on Wednesday in his office at Government House, Uyo, the state capital, Ekpo welcomed the development, charging the Federal Government on implementation.
Ekpo, who is the chairman of the State Boundary Commission, spoke against the backdrop of incessant killings at the Akwa Ibom/Cross River border at Itu local government area of Akwa Ibom State, even as he appealed to the federal government for a long-term measures to end the killings.
The age-old boundary war between the fishing communities of Oku Iboku in Itu LGA of Akwa Ibom and their neighbours of Ikot Offiong in Cross River state, our correspondent gathered, has been raging for several years before the creation of the State from Cross River in 1987.
While attributing the incessant border crises to joblessness among the restive youths, Ekpo noted that “the Federal Government had abandoned the Oku Iboku Newsprint Manufacturing Company that used to create jobs for the indegenes of the two states.
“People from the two states used to work there together,” he recalled, adding that the freequency of the crises could be curbed if industries are located on the troubled boundary lands.
On the internal communal wars between migrant fishermen of Yoruba-Ilaje extraction and the native Ibenos in Ibeno local government area of the State, Ekpo assured that the matter was being handled for peace to return.
Also, the people of Amazaba in Eastern Obolo local government area has displaced people for over 10 years from their ancestral home after the war with the people of Ikot Akpan Udo in Ikot Abasi local government area.
Ekpo said, “arrangements are in final stages for them to return home. We have met with leaders on both sides and agreement for peace reached for them to return.”
