The Camerouns was a german colonial territory turned french
after European 2nd World War.
Historically, All official maps from colonial time, beginning about 1883-1914, to post-independence period of Nigeria between 1960 to 1993, located Bakassi and the surrounding islands in the Camerouns. The inhabitants were mostly village fisher-folk: nigerians (west) & camérounians (east).
During the Nigerian Fratricide, commonly called Nigeria-Biafra war, the head of government in Nigeria, Mr. Gowon, pledged [nigerian side of] Bakassi to Ahidjo's Cameroun for aid against the Biafrans. Ahidjo who grew up in N E Nigeria was already anti-Biafra...
Cameroun fulfilled her part of this"informal pact"...
After the war, Gowon partially formalized the pact, by what is called Marwa Declaration. Marwa (Maroua) is a town in N Caméroun. But the two countries continued disputing over the péninsula through the (late) nineteen seventies. Negotiations and boundary commissions procured no definite results.
In 1981, Camerounian security agents aggressed their Nigerian counterparts in Bakassi. Some lives were lost. This led to partial militarization of the area: from Akwa Yafe river to Boro Camp. Skirmishes occasionally occurred.
During the regime of Mr. Abacha, Nigeria openly occupied Bakassi. Abacha himself gave it the status of LGA (local government area). But it was also then that they nigerianly made a mess of the whole diplomacy and politics over Bakassi. Not by the occupation but by the droves of official and unofficial negotiators who wrangled among themselves for estacodes.
Cameroun prudently discerned that Nigeria had very weak case whatever her military or populational might. She took the matter to the International Court. By the IC's verdict, Camerounian state got back {that's, legitimized the "ownership" of} what had always been hers.
Mr. Obasanjo started to implement that verdict. It culminated under Mr. Yarad on August 14, 2008. This is the GreenTree Agreement.
Nigerian governments complacently mis-informed the populace. So, many people combined the illusion, the ignorance, mischievous patriotism, plus the thirst for the petroleum in Bakassi, in making a huge babel of the transference.
Probably, many of the people of Bakassi would have, unconfusedly, become Camerounians if they wouldn't relocate {or pay rents...} as advised by some high-ranking officials involved in the affair. But some clever crooks among Nigerian executives and officials have calculated to use them as a ladle to spoon huge funds into their private bank accounts. That's why they induced the translocation of the population of west Bakassi...
Bakassi, from the past and by politics, belongs in the Camerouns.
* * *
The present developments there are both surprising and unsurprising. They elicit some questions.
Is nigerian go'ment secretly attemting to "retake" the whole of Bakassi?
...after spending all those time & resources implemeting Green Tree?
Or are somebodies being goaded on by a mental picture of private wealth if they could preside over the issuance of licenses for oil extraction (BAKASSI is "oily") ?
* * *
To me, one of the things Mr Obasanjo got excellently right was the "obedience" to the verdict...
At that time, the next option was war; and I think it still is. You can guess well who'd participate in the war & for what reasons...
And don't forget that the immediate target of "the missiles" are afiriKan 'brothers'...who of their own natural will, neither make weapons nor make war for pétroleum; and who can freely give the field to each other, unmindful of the modern-wealth that nature had put underneath.
In a nation where gov'ments delight in keeping the governed in ignorance, blind & zealous patriotism may prove very dangerous; may engender unimaginable disasters...
10 times the population of Bakassi may get wasted in military conflagration, to the profit of foreigners, and the problem would still be intactly unsolved...
There's a big question here: to what use were the huge resources marked out for resettlement of bakassi indigens and denizens put...? ...that they are crying 'neglect' so soon
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