CAMEROON-NIGERIA: Nigeria delays handing over Bakassi Peninsula

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

ABUJA, 13 Sep 2004 (IRIN) - Nigeria will not hand over the disputed and potentially oil-rich Bakassi Pensinsula to Cameroon on 15 September, the date previously agreed with UN mediators, Nigerian officials said on Monday.

Speaking after a series of closed door meetings with members of the federal parliament in Abuja, they said the 15 September deadline for Nigeria to withdraw its armed forces and its civilian administration from the swampy neck of jungle jutting into the Gulf of Guinea would be ignored.

Ani Eric Essien, who heads the local administration in the Bakassi Peninsula, said Nigerian troops and government officials were staying put in the 1,000 sq km territory.

“As we speak now Nigerian troops have not been withdrawn from Bakassi,” Essein told reporters as he emerged from a series of meetings at the House of Representatives.

“We’re going back home satisfied that the government is behind us, that we’re not going to move from there,” he added.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ)in the Hague ruled in October 2002 that the Bakassi Peninsula belonged to Cameroon, even though most of its inhabitants considered themselves to be Nigerian.

After initial resistance, President Olusegun Obasanjo eventually agreed to hand over the territory, providing the interests of its inhabitants were safeguarded, while negotiations continued on demarcating the maritime boundary between the two countries.

Demarcation of the maritime boundary is vital for determining which country gets to enjoy the benefits of any offshore oil found in the area, which adjoins Nigeria's existing offshore oilfields.

But Essien Ayi, who represents Bakassi in the House of Representatives, declared bluntly on Monday that this week's planned handover of the Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon would not take place.

“September 15 may be important in the books of the ICJ, but it means nothing to the people of Bakassi,” Ayi said. “We’re not Cameroonians and can’t become Cameroonians overnight,” he added.

The UN Special Representative for West Africa, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, who has been mediating between the two sides, acknowledged on Monday night that there would be a delay.

But he said in a statement released by his office in Dakar, Senegal that it was a temporary hiccup which should be overcome shortly.

"While the soveriegnty of Cameroon is not dispute, the planned operation may be delayed due to unexpected technical difficulties," Ould Abdallah said.

"I remain confident that progress is close at hand. In the next few days a new agenda should be made public by my office," the former Mauritanian foreign minister added.

"The government in Yaounde has been duly informed for these new developments and I count on its usual support and cooperation," he concluded.

Government officials in the Cameroonian capital were not immediately available for comment.

Preparations for the handover had appeared to be going well when Obasanjo visited President Paul Biya of Cameroon in Yaounde at the end of July.

The meeting was very cordial and both men stressed that such a territorial dispute would never again bring their countries to the brink of war. Nigeria and Cameroon almost came to blows over the Bakassi dispute in 1981 and again in the early 1990s.

However, the handover process appeared to suffer a hitch during August, when diplomats started to speak about unspecified difficulties arising.

On 29 August when Ould Abdallah's office said in a statement that further meetings between the two sides would be needed to finalise the terms of the transfer.

Shortly afterwards, Nigeria's House of Representatives passed a resolution asking Obasanjo to seek a U.N.-supervised referendum which would allow the inhabitants of the Bakassi Peninsula to determine whether they wanted to be in Nigeria or Cameroon.

On Monday, Nigerian lawmakers were briefed on the Bakassi issue by officials of the Justice Ministry and the National Boundary Commission and by Bola Ajibola, Nigeria's representative on the UN-backed Nigeria-Cameroon Mixed Commission.

The commission was set up by UN Secretary General to oversee the implementation of the October 2002 ICJ judgment that ceded Bakassi to Cameroon.

While most officials declined to comment on what was discussed in Monday's meetings at the House of Representatives, one source said Ajibola had told the legislators that Nigeria had sought more time to negotiate Bakassi with Cameroon.

Nigerian troops occupied most of the disputed peninsula in late 1993, prompting Cameroon to file a complaint at the ICJ in 1994. However, the body only delivered its ruling on the matter eight years later.

Ruling that the territory belonged to Cameroon, the ICJ based its decision on a 1913 pact between Germany, the former colonial power in Cameroon and Britain, which then controlled Nigeria.

[ENDS]