Edet Okon, 40, was a fisherman at Bakassi Peninsula. After Baskassi was ceded to Cameroon, the village was
sacked by Cameroonian gender-manes who killed many people.
Edet managed to escape and now lives in a refugee camp at St. Mark Primary School, Akwa Ikot Eyo Edem community, Cross River State. He lost his first daughter, Blessing, to the cold hands of death in September 2013, after battling with blood cancer for 5 months.
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 2nd daughter, Mary, as collateral to secure the sum of N600k given.
The creditor is a civil servant based in Calabar. His name is given as Asuquo Etim, residing on Atimbo Road, Calabar South LGA. He is said to be an employee of the Cross River State Urban Development Agency. Daniel Ufot, an expert in money lending, was the intermediary who helped Okon negotiate the loan from the creditor.
Mary, who was a J.S.S 2 pupil before they left Bakassi in March, 2013, has since dropped out of school. Every morning, Mary hawks bottle water on the streets of Calabar. Mary said: “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.”…. ds is terrible. I used to think it only happens in USA and UK……
