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Nigeria accuses Cameroon of breaching UN accord on Bakassi
By Joel Olatunde Agoi
AFP
ABANA, Nigeria
Petroleumworld.com 08 12 06
Nigeria threatened on Saturday to report to the United Nations an alleged violation by Cameroon of a UN-brokered accord on demilitarisation of Bakassi, as it worked to meet a deadline for withdrawing 3,000 Nigerian troops from the oil-rich peninsula this weekend.
"We have notified higher authorities (in Nigeria) about this violation of the UN-brokered agreement on the demilitarisation of the peninsula," a spokesman for the Nigerian defence headquarters, Brigadier General Felix Chukwuma, told journalists.
"I am very positive that Nigeria would take this up at the appropriate level," he said.
Chukwuma was referring to the alleged takeover of several villages on the peninsula by Cameroonian security agents before Nigeria formally hands over the territory to Yaounde on August 14.
Reporters touring the Bakassi peninsula ahead of the formal handover saw several Cameroonian soldiers camped at the village of Ibekwe on the peninsula.
Lieutenant Colonel Ibrahim Umar, the Nigerian commander of the Isaac Boro military camp, which controls the area, said the presence of the Cameroonian soldiers was a breach of the accord between the two countries because the territory had yet to be formally relinquished to Yaounde.
"This is obviously an act of aggression and provocation on the part of the Cameroonians. Nigeria will not take kindly to this insurgence," added Major Victor Digol, a senior military officer with the Joint Task Force on Bakassi.
"If the Cameroonian authorities cannot call their soldiers to order, the UN and the international community have to wade into the matter because this is a gross breach of internal protocol," he said.
Nigeria and Cameroon have disputed the ownership of the Bakassi peninsula since 1993. In the heat of the crisis, each side stationed troops on its side of the region.
Yaounde took Abuja to the World Court in 1994 to adjudicate over the dispute.
In October 2002, the court ruled in favour of Cameroon and ceded the disputed territory in the Gulf of Guinea to Yaounde.
Last June 12 in New York, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and his Cameroonian counterpart, Paul Biya, signed a deal under which Nigeria agreed to withdraw its troops form Bakassi and hand over the territory to Cameroon, in line with an October 2002 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
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 the Bakassi peninsula, will continue to be administered by Nigeria for two years after the troop withdrawal.
Bakassi is a potentially oil-rich 1,000 square kilometre (400 square mile) patch of Atlantic coastal swamp with access to coveted fishing grounds.
Nigerians living in Bakassi were nervous Saturday as the country intensified efforts to withdraw its troops from the peninsula ahead of a UN-brokered deadline and
Monday's formal handing over of the territory to Cameroon.
"We are not happy about the withdrawal of the troops because a vacuum is being created. My people are becoming apprehensive of the security situation that will be left behind," the vice chairman of Bakassi's local government council, Udeme Effiong Okon, told AFP.
Lionel Effiong, who lives in Atabong, a large village on the peninsula from which several hundred troops have already been pulled out, said: "I feel very sad because Nigeria has allowed Cameroon to mess us up."
Residents of Abana, headquarters of Bakassi municipality, were fearful over their future if they relocated to Nigerian territory but afraid also they might be attacked by Yaounde forces as soon as Bakassi was handed over to Cameroon.
The military commander of the joint task force on the Bakassi operation, Major General Steve Guan told journalists: "We are pulling out of the peninsula in compliance with international law and agreement to demilitarise the peninsula."
AFP 12 1636 GMT 08 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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