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 installments.
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 CampLeader, 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.
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