Posted by By Senan Murray on
More than three years after leaving their village on the shores of Lake Chad when it was transferred to Cameroon, thousands of fishermen are heading back.
Many are disillusioned, having struggled to make a new life inland in the dusty village of Ali Sheriffti in north-east Nigeria where they were resettled.
"I'm counting the days and very soon I will join my colleagues who have already left Ali Sheriffti and returned to Darak," says fisherman Saidu Muhammadu.
Darak is one of the 32 villages Nigeria handed over to Cameroon in December 2003 following an International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling over the disputed border.
The ICJ spent nine years redrawing the boundaries between the two countries which were blurred by colonial agreements.
The virgin settlement of Ali Sheriffti in Borno State, where people who decided not to stay in Cameroon took up residence, was named after the state governor, Modu Ali Sheriff.
But promised amenities for the fishermen and their families failed to materialise.
Nomad camp
With just a few straw huts, Ali Sheriffti is a far cry from the permanent village the government said it would build.
| They were living in straw huts in Darak so, it'd be a bit too much for them to expect modern structures Secretary Adamu Chindo |
It looks more like a settlement for nomads who are about to break camp.
There are signs that a primary healthcare centre and a school will be built, but the pipe-born water and roads that were also promised are nowhere in sight.
"You could say it's been official deceit all along and we were stupid enough to believe them," Malam Ahmadu Abubakar, a fisherman mending his nets outside his straw hut, says.
Like other men, Mr Abubakar goes off for weeks at a time to fish on the lake as he cannot find work nearby.
"When we first came here, we were about 3,840 in number, but today, if you took a roll call of the entire village, you wouldn't find 1,000 people here.
"They have all returned to Darak because they have discovered that back there, they had a life."
Ingratitude
But the presidential resettlement committee, set up by the Nigerian government in December 2003, dismisses the villagers' concerns as lack of gratitude.
"Our mandate does not include building homes for them," says Adamu Chindo, the committee's secretary.
"Don't forget that they were living in straw huts in Darak so, it'd be a bit too much for them to expect modern structures."
Government documents, however, specify that the committee's terms of reference include the provision of "shelter, food and medical support" for returnees in Ali Sheriffti and the other resettlement centres of Dambore, Sagir and Ndabakura/Lellede.
The resettlement committee also maintains the returnees had the option to stay in Darak either as foreigners or citizens of Cameroon.
"We didn't force them to come back to Nigeria. They chose to come back," Mr Chindo says.
Receding shores
This is not something the villagers dispute. "We were quite happy to return to Nigeria because we are Nigerians," says villager, Malam Bala Nasiru.
But Ali Sheriffti's main problem is that 90% of its population are fishermen, yet it is a three-hour bumpy car ride across the dusty plain - there is no road - to Lake Chad's shores.
Mr Nasiru explains that while many of the villagers originally did come from these parts, they have had to move ever further away to follow the ever-receding shores of Lake Chad.
"I tell you we were better off in Darak. Apart from routine harassment over taxes from the Cameroonian authorities, life in Darak was more meaningful," he says.
It is a sentiment echoed by most fisherman who have decided to up sticks and move their families back to what may not be their homeland anymore, but feels more like home.
"For me, this experience has been like coming back home to die slowly. This can't be home. This is not home," Mr Nasiru says.