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CAMEROON-NIGERIA: Lawmakers threatens to overturn Bakassi agreement

23 Nov 2007 19:18:28 GMT
Source: IRIN

ABUJA, 23 November 2007 (IRIN) - The Nigerian senate has called for a review of the 2006 agreement in which Nigeria agreed to transfer ownership of the disputed Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon.

The resolution issued by the senate on 22 November called into question the validity of the agreement saying that the former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, failed to bring the treaty before the national assembly for ratification.

The Nigerian Constitution requires international treaties to be ratified by the national assembly before being adopted. The resolution said the current president, Umaru Yar'Adua, should now bring past agreements forward for ratification.

The senate action raised the specter of renewed conflict between Nigeria and Cameroon more than a year after Nigeria handed more that 80 percent of the disputed peninsula back to Cameroon. The News Agency of Nigeria reported that the Nigerian chairman of the Nigeria-Cameroon Boundary Dispute Commission, Prince Bola Ajibola, had said that a failure to ratify the agreement would trigger a war between the two countries.

Despite progress in transferring Bakassi to Cameroon, tensions were raised last week when 21 Cameroonian soldiers were killed by unknown assailants. Cameroon initially alleged that the assailants were Nigerian soldiers; Nigeria has since denied the claim saying the attackers were militants from the Niger Delta.

The two nations have contested the 2,300-kilometre border from Lake Chad to the Bakassi Peninsula since independence. Both countries have also claimed the rights to the oil-rich maritime area near the peninsula until the ruling in 2003 by the International Court of Justice decided that it too belonged to Cameroon.

The two countries signed a final agreement on the hand-over in May 2007. Nigeria is set to give the remaining 18 percent of Bakassi it controls to Cameroon by August 2008.

The former president may not have followed all legal procedures in enacting the agreement, professor of political science and international relations at the University of Abuja, Usman Mohammed, told IRIN, but he said it is no longer an option to renege on the agreements.

"Even if the head of state was wrong because the agreement of June 12, 2006 was without ratification, the national assembly should have drawn attention on the deficiency," he said. "But now years after Nigeria has ceded Bakassi to Cameroon and here comes this controversial resolution… I believe that this contravenes international jurisdiction."

Some senate members have said that the aim of the resolution is not to reclaim disputed territory from Cameroon. "We have a judgment of the International Court of Justice… I think we have gotten past that point," Deputy Senate leader Victor Ndoma-Egba told IRIN. "The important thing now is enforcing judgments [by having them] brought before the national assembly," Ndoma-Egba said referring to past agreements that were not ratified.

In addition to questioning the legality of the 2006 agreement, the senate called for more to be done for people who want to leave Bakassi because they are wary of Cameroonian rule. "The next step will be how to make adequate resettlement plans for the displaced persons," Ndoma-Egba said.

ed/dh/np

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Last updated:Fri Nov 23 19:21:52 2007