Posted by Soni Daniel, Port Harcourt on
Barely two days to the commencement of the demarcation of the boundary between Bayelsa and Rivers State, the people of Kula Kingdom in Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State have accused a neigbouring state of importing strange faces into the area.
Barely two days to the commencement of the demarcation of the boundary between Bayelsa and Rivers State, the people of Kula Kingdom in Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State have accused a neigbouring state of importing strange faces into the area.
The Kula Council of Chiefs in a statement in Port Harcourt on Monday said that the intention of their neighbours was to give the erroneous impression that the areas under contention were not part of Kula and therefore not in Rivers.
The statement, which was jointly endorsed by the Chairman of the Kula Council of Chiefs, Chief Dan Opusunji and eight others, asked the Rivers state Government to take necessary steps to stop the invasion of their community by the strangers.
The statement said, 'This is to notify you of the plan by a state government to send non-indigenes to occupy our fishing settlements before the commencement of the boundary demarcation exercise."
The letter dated July 7, 2005 and addressed to the Deputy Governor of the state, alleged that the state in question wanted to annex 18 fishing settlements located within the main boundary of Saint Nicholas and Saint Barbara Rivers.
'We are pleading with you to revisit these fishing settlements and verify things for yourselves and to monitor the activities of these foreigners so that your lofty aims and aspirations would not be defeated," the chiefs' council said.
'We are also asking you expedite action on our protest letter to prevent a bloody clash within the affected communities and our neighbours,' they pleaded.
Rivers and Bayelsa states are billed to begin the physical demarcation of their boundaries on Wednesday this week under the supervision of the National Boundary Commission to put an end to the skirmishes that have been rocking them since the latter was carved out of the former in 1996.
The two states may spend close to N36million to carry out the exercise.
The Punch Tuesday, July 12, 2005