Yar’adua and the August 14 Handing-over of the Nigeria’s Bakassi Peninsular to Cameroun

I join millions of my fellow Nigerians and others alike with similar ideas in condemning the impending handing-over of Nigeria’s Bakassi peninsular to the Camerounian authorities and make bold to warn that this will surely spell disaster to Nigeria whether now or in the nearest future for this act will clearly and justifiably expose the inability of our leaders to fully comprehend what national interest means to nations and citizens.

The impending handing-over of Bakassi peninsular to Cameroun will also in the nearest future encourage other neighboring countries bordering Nigeria to lay claims to territories belonging to Nigeria and subsequently succeeding in their quest because the policies of our leaders have not shown the ability to protect their subjects but utter haste to please the big countries of the world in their resolve to consolidate power and appear friends of world powers. The Nigeria’s unidentified urge to hand-over the peninsular to Cameroun has also obviously sparked of violence between militants in from Nigeria and Camerounian soldiers, which no one has an idea how long this will last.

President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua have completely towed along the path of his predecessor, Olusegun Obasanjo whom many believe is still in control of the government of the nation. The handing-over of Bakassi peninsular to Cameroun amidst the present spate of crises will only help to determinedly confirm this development. We Nigerians who voted in Yar’Adua and other members of his cabinet wish to remind him that he is still under an oath to protect the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of which Bakassi is part and parcel of. He pledged to uphold this but would follow the hasty path leading to the handing-over of the Bakassi peninsular as set by Obasanjo much to the neglect of the National Assembly. All the arrangements including the Green Tree Agreement are shrouded from the understanding of the Nigerian masses.

A good leader would have at least ideally made a public broadcast to inform his fellow countrymen on the developments and in this way obtain their nods before thinking of handing over the oil rich region which has remained under the administration of the country from time immemorial. But the case of Nigeria has not been so, the same Obasanjo who woke the good people of Nigeria that early morning to intimate them on the need to replace the leadership of Ekiti state with a state of emergency leadership did not deem it useful to equally wake Nigerians and relay to them in a broadcast reasons the peninsular must be handed-over. 

International Relations experts all over are fully aware that the constitution of any nation by far takes precedence over those of international laws including the infamous, erroneous, misleading and annoying judgment of the International Court of Justice over the Bakassi peninsular. Interestingly too, Prince Bola Ajibola a member of the failed legal team that represented Nigeria at the ICJ has in a continuous manner expressed his appreciation on why the National Assembly should hastily tinker with the constitution of the land in other for Bakassi to pass to Cameroun.  In a recent interview granted Tell Magazine, he stated that the Bakassi peninsular has never been part of Nigeria. What talk coming a Nigerian leader? If Bakassi was never part of Nigeria from inception why did the Lawyer agree to represent Nigeria in the first place? With this kind of idea on the mind of our representative at ICJ, we may well conclude that he was at Hague with biased ideas mind, how he had hoped to win the matter for Nigeria well becomes another question entirely. But another good question that needs to be asked here is if the Bakassi peninsular was a Yoruba land, would he have readily consented to the giving away of the peninsular?

Let us listen to the voice of reasons while the opportunity is still with us.

A former minority Leader f the House of Representatives, Mr Emmanuel Arigbi-Osula puts it

“We can do the right thing now or go the lawless part and plunge our country into an avoidable crisis…”

“Yar’Adua will be remedying one of the most hideous crimes of Obasanjo’s administration against Nigerians who in a desperate bid to perpetuate himself in power ceded away part of the nation ostensibly to hoodwink other world leaders that he was peace-loving and the solution to the Africa insecurity.”

The way and manner this our leaders handle matters concerning the welfare of Nigerians remarkably gives us the understanding that our individuals rights, interests and claims remain exposed. Nobody cares to know what the indigenes of Bakassi are going through not even the government which rendered them homeless much less ICJ, all we hear is the desperation of the Nigerian government to let go of Bakassi. Chief Richard Akinjide has warned that the handing-over of Bakassi will not augur well Nigeria and Nigerians.

In bringing this article to an end I wish to state Nigeria’s foreign policy centered on Africa appears to be gradually becoming eroded and unfavorable to the citizens of the nation instead favoring other Africans more for it is this reason that the country decided to hand-over Bakassi peninsular to Cameroun in uttermost neglect of her own citizens whom she should grant protection.