Court Confirms Autonomy Of Fouchee Community

A Port Harcourt High Court, last Friday, confirmed the status of Fouchee as an autonomous community separate from neighbouring Bakana community that had denied the existence of Fouchee and disrupted her development for many decades.
The trial judge, Justice Adolphus Enebeli, also declared that the Iboroma group of houses that claimed to be Bakana to spite the Fouchee community were actually from Fouchee community.
Enebeli had no kind words for the Bakana leadership that had colonised the Fouchee people and appropriated their economic rights for decades, even as he granted four of the five reliefs the Fouchee people placed before the court in 2000.
The judge said that the Fouchee people were able to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt, and further issued a perpetual injunction restraining Bakana from meddling or interfering in the affairs of Fouchee community, including, it’s political fortunes and royalties from oil and gas activities accruable to the Fouchee community.
Speaking to the media after the judgement, Counsel for the Fouchee community, Barrister Priye Peter-Kio, said that the judge looked at 54 documents, including superior court judgements, including that of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, and upheld the fact that Fouchee was a distinct community from Bakana.
He said that the import of the judgement was that Fouchee was neither part of Bakana nor subordinate to Bakana, and so, Bakana can no longer oppress or impose her will on Fouchee and its people.
Also speaking, spokesman of Fouchee community, AlaboDagogo Clinton, said that the judgement was made in Heaven.
He said that the legal battle was avoidable because the Bakana people knew the truth.
According to him, Fouchee was recognised and operates as an autonomous community before the Federal Government, the Rivers State Government, the International Oil Companies (IOCs), the Kalabari Council of Chiefs and the rest, but regretted that only Bakana failed to see her next door neighbour as autonomous.