In the dusty village of Akwa Ikot Eyo Edem, Akpabuyo Local
Government Area of Cross River State, Edet Okon sat down in front of St. Mark
Primary School.
Sitting cross-legged on the concrete floor on one of the blocks of classrooms
he now calls his home, the 40-year-old father of three leaned forward to
exchange pleasantries with this correspondent. Okon’s immediate family members and 963 other households had fled their
ancestral homes in Efut Obot Ikot in the ceded Bakassi Peninsula in March 2013.The fisherman lost his first daughter, Blessing, to the cold hands of death in
September 2013, after battling with blood cancer for five months.But Okon’s agony did not end with Blessing’s death. Indeed, he now lives in the
pool of the anguish of a man who has to practically sell his child into
slavery. To raise funds for the series of medical tests,
drugs, feeding and hospital bills incurred by Blessing, he opted to secure
loans from someone to save her dying daughter.
With no property to guarantee the loan, Okon gave up his second daughter, Mary,
as collateral to secure the sum of N600, 000 given to him in instalments.Our correspondent gathered that the creditor is a civil servant based in
Calabar.“I was desperate to save Blessing from dying. Her situation
had become critical at that time. That was the only thing I could do to salvage
the situation. I am heartbroken,” Okon said, as his voice faded off, breaking
down in tears.As tears rolled down his cheeks, he recalled the day he
‘sold’ her daughter into servitude.“I don’t know what came over me. It was sheer desperation I
gave out my daughter so that the man would accept to give us the money,”Okon added, fighting back regrets of what many are
likely to regard as condemnable.Our correspondent reached out to the
intermediary, Daniel Ufot. He helped Okon to negotiate the N600, 000 loan from
the creditor. On getting to the residence of the 59-year-old Ufot, who lives
some five kilometres away from the camp, our correspondent found Mary in his
residence.
Ufot explained that some plain-cloth security operatives keeping watch on the
camp had asked him to bring Mary from Calabar to meet with his father who he
had not seen in 19 months.“I do not know Okon from Adam. But since I’m an expert in
money lending, I offered to help him after having learnt of his predicament on
how he had been battling to save the life of his daughter.But unfortunately, he
could not provide any form of collateral to secure the loan. But the creditor,
in his magnanimity, agreed to have her daughter as collateral since she was the
only valuable ‘thing’ he could offer,” Ufot said.In a chat with this correspondent, Mary, who was a junior
secondary school 2 pupil before they left Bakassi in March, 2013, has since
dropped out of school following their displacement from the oil rich
peninsular. She shared horrible tales of inhuman treatment in the hands of her
father’s creditor.
Every morning, Mary hawks bottle water on the streets of Calabar, where,
incidentally, Mary Slessor stopped the killing of twins. Observers may also
spot the irony in the name of the legendary missionary and the enslaved Mary
Okon. She added that on any day she failed to exhaust the sales of her wares,
her new guardians descended heavily on her, beating her mercilessly in the
process.“The man my father is owing has three female children and
some other relatives are also putting up with us in the house. They normally
give me a revenue target of N1, 000 daily.And sometimes when the market is bad
and I don’t finish selling the water, they beat me up. They treat me very
badly. I eat only once in a day and that is in the morning.I wash all their
clothes, including the ladies’ pants, and do other house chores, too. And if I
hesitate on washing their pants, they get infuriated and throw objects at me at
will. I will not feel happy if I go back there,” she narrated.Yet, Ufot insisted that he only brought Mary to meet with
his father as a respite since he had not set his eyes on her for about 19
months.
“There are no signs that they would be repaying the loan. I
only obeyed the instruction of the security men. She will be on her way back to
the creditor’s place in Calabar,” Ufot said.When contacted, the Refugee Camp Leader, Etim Ene, confirmed
to our correspondent on the telephone on Monday that Mary has indeed returned
to the creditor in Calabar.Ene said, “Mary has been taken to the creditor’s house in
Calabar South. He was taken away by the guarantor, on December 2.”Efforts by our correspondent to trace the address of the
creditor, whose name is given as Asuquo Etim, said to be residing on Atimbo
Road, Calabar South Local Government Area, was abortive. The creditor is said
to be an employee of the Cross River State Urban Development Agency.Ufot had earlier refused to allow Mary to travel with our correspondent to her
master’s residence for fear of the unknown.Mary’s mother was away in the farm
during a visit by The Punch.
Via. Punch
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