Nigeria set to hand Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon
Nigeria will on Monday formally hand sovereignty over the potentially oil-rich Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon after withdrawing its 3,000 troops in compliance with a UN-brokered deadline.
The handover ceremony, to be held at Archibong, in the north of the peninsula, was to be attended by foreign dignitaries and diplomats, plus Nigerian military and government officials.
Cameroon's deputy prime minister, Amadou Ali, will lead his country's delegation to the ceremony, when the Nigerian flag will be lowered and Cameroon's hoisted in its place, a senior government official in Yaounde told AFP.
Nigerian and Cameroonian officials, in the presence of UN, French, German, US, British and African Union officials, will witness the exchange of documents that will legally seal the transfer of sovereignty, officials said.
Nigeria began to withdraw its troops from the Gulf of Guinea peninsula on August 1 and speeded up the pull-out at the weekend to meet the deadline.
The ceremony is expected to formally end a bitter dispute that has dragged on for 13 years between Abuja and Yaounde over ownership of the territory.
Nigeria and Cameroon have since 1993 disputed ownership of the Bakassi peninsula, a 1,000-square-kilometre (400-square-mile) patch of Atlantic coastal swamp with access to coveted fishing grounds.
The dispute led to bloody clashes between troops of the two neighbouring countries stationed each side of the territory.
Yaounde dragged Abuja in 1994 to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague, which after years of legal wrangling ruled in favour of ceding the territory to Cameroon.
Nigeria rejected the ICJ ruling, saying that it did not take into account the interests of Nigerians living in Bakassi. The United Nations intervened and the two countries set up a UN-chaired joint commission to solve the crisis.
After Monday's ceremony, the two sides are to meet later to discuss demarcation of their maritime boundaries in line with the ICJ ruling, officials said.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and his Cameroonian counterpart Paul Biya on June 12 signed a deal under which Nigeria agreed to withdraw its troops from Bakassi "within 60 days" and hand over the territory to Cameroon.
Under the deal, signed in the presence of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the islands of Atabong and Abana, which form the western part of Bakassi, will continue to be administered by Nigeria for two years after the withdrawal.
It also stipulates that Nigerians living in southern Bakassi will have up to two years to decide whether to remain Nigerian citizens living in Cameroon, to take Cameroonian nationality or to return to Nigerian soil.
Nigerian authorities have allocated a virgin expanse of land in Itang, near Calabar, capital of the southeastern Cross River State, to Nigerians living in Bakassi who wish to relocate to Nigeria, state officials said.
The Nigerian military commander of the joint task force on the Bakassi withdrawal, Major General Steve Guan, said the withdrawal fulfilled Nigeria's international duties and was not a defeat for his country.
"Nigerian troops were not defeated, neither were we forced to leave, but as a responsible country and a member of the international community we have to respect the... agreement signed June 12 in New York," Guan told journalists.
However Nigeria threatened Saturday to report Cameroon to the UN for an alleged violation of the handover accord. Yaounde has not reacted to the charge.
Reporters who toured Bakassi at the weekend saw Cameroonian soldiers camped at the village of Ibekwe, a presence considered by the Nigerian military to be a breach of the agreement.
Nigerians living in Bakassi were nervous at the weekend as the country wound down its troop presence on the peninsula. They accused Cameroonian security agents of harassment and extortion and fear attack by Yaounde forces as soon as Bakassi is handed over to Cameroon.
AFP
