Nigeria will hand over the Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon on Thursday, putting an end to a 15-year dispute over the territory believed to contain considerable oil and gas reserves.
Last week, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon hailed Nigeria’s upcoming transfer as ”a model for negotiated settlements of border disputes”, saying it would be ”a landmark event”.
Nigeria agreed to transfer Bakassi, which juts into the Gulf of Guinea, two years ago but sporadic gun battles and political and legal disagreements have delayed it.
A Cameroon government official said Thursday’s transfer marks ”the end of a crisis” that began in December 1993 when the Nigerian army occupied a number of villages on the peninsula.
Cameroon first took its case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague (ICJ) in March 1994.
After a drawn-out legal battle, the ICJ ruled in October 2002 that the Bakassi peninsula should be given to Cameroon. It based its decision largely on a 1913 treaty between former colonial powers Britain and Germany.
Cameroon and Nigeria then signed an accord, known as the Green Tree agreement, in New York in June 2006 during United States-facilitated mediation talks and in the presence of then UN secretary general Kofi Annan.
This paved the way for Nigeria’s withdrawal from Bakassi, which is expected to be completed in a flag-exchanging ceremony on August 14.
But the handover has been threatened by last-minute legal challenges and a number of deadly attacks.
Last month, a federal court in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, granted an injunction preventing the government from handing over Bakassi to Cameroon by its agreed deadline.
Despite the move, President Umaru Yar’Adua insisted Nigeria would not abandon its international obligations.
The peninsula, which is believed to contain considerable oil and gas reserves as well as rich fishing grounds, has also been the scene of violent attacks in recent months.
Approximately 50 people have been killed in recent clashes between Cameroonian soldiers and local armed groups opposed to the transfer in the peninsula that spans 1 000 square kilometres.
Last month the Niger Delta Defence and Security Council claimed responsibility for an attack at Kombo Ajanea, in which 12 people died, including two Cameroonian soldiers.
The armed Nigerian group threatened further violence unless the transfer of Bakassi is renegotiated.
Although the peninsula’s official population size is not known, it is thought most of its inhabitants are Nigerian, while Cameroonians make up the majority of the civil servants and military personnel.
A school head in Akwa, a Cameroon locality from where one can see Nigeria, said he welcomed Thursday’s transfer. ”We are looking forward to August 14 with a lot hope,” Bernard Ambeno said. — Sapa-AFP