Constitutional Questions In Ceding Nigerian Villages To Cameroon

Constitutional Questions In Ceding Nigerian Villages To Cameroon

In far away Geneva the deal to hand over 33 Nigerian villages on the lake Chad basin and the entire stretch of communities in the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon was finally concluded with the now famous handshake between Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and his Cameroonian counterpart, Paul Biya. Gone with it are the dreams of over 54000 displaced Nigerian families (still counting). They are forever uprooted from their root, their ancestral homes, and means of livelihood, history, traditions and gods. Their lives will never be the same again.

Some have been forced to a new allegiance to Cameroon, others have been relocated to places far and wide within the boundaries of neighboring states. For some the experience is like a replay of the uncertainties of another era in Nigeria’s recent history, the refugee crisis of the Biafran civil war.

But then that was understandable, citizens suffered and endured for a national ideal, to keep Nigeria as one indivisible political entity under God and preserve the country’s territorial integrity. It was an ideal for which many made the ultimate sacrifice, laying down their lives to assert the inviolability of Nigeria’s territorial integrity. And within the Nigerian society itself, inspite of the pulls of ethnic identity, there is a near consensus of the raison d’etre of the state as the largest federation of black people on earth and the need to maintain the status quo. Thus it becomes really confounding to watch the present government cede Nigerian villages one after the other to Cameroon and exposed its citizens to untold hardship and distress. Moreso the decision is not that of the Nigerian people as represented by an act of the national assembly but an extraordinary ruling of the World Court in the case of the land and maritime dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon.

Even more confounding is the near absence of debate in the polity about not only the desirability of the policy but the constitutional questions raised by this serious issue. The government made sure it was not part of the electoral campaigns in last year’s controversial polls. But it is not enough to listen to hackneyed statements about peace, good neighbor policy and statesmanship of the Nigerian leader, without knowing its ramifications to our collective national existence as a people guided by the constitution and laws of the land.

For example to what extent does this conflict with the "directive principles of the state" and other provisions of the Nigerian constitution that guarantees to its citizens protection under the law? Has the President who took an oath to protect Nigerians and safeguard its sovereignty acted within the limits of his power or above the call of duty to satisfy some other personal agenda that bothers on a messianic complex to be seen as an African statesman?

This point becomes more apparent given the reported manner in which the Presidency ignored the resolution passed by the Borno State House of Assembly calling on the federal government to reconsider its decision to go ahead with the hand-over. Similar opposition by the people of Bakassi are not being listened to and all the stakeholders and victims of the dispossession are cut off in the different bilateral discussions between Nigeria and Cameroon and the triparte meetings involving both countries and the United Nations, their concerns not an issue in the process of land and maritime border adjustment between the two countries ordered by the World Court.

Indeed it also raises questions about our legal system and its relationship with the several international legal instruments, which we subscribe to. This has become necessary given the proliferation of such major instruments that Nigeria has ratified. At issue here is how can we balance the requirement of our national security to the sometimes misplaced and often whimsical enthusiasm of our leaders to be seen as playing a role in international affairs.

But of more serious consequence is the legacy of setting a dangerous precedent and making the sacrifices of our heroes past to probably be in vain. When you start voluntarily ceding the country’s territories to any belligerent who makes a false claim to it, when you make it easy to achieve this goal without a fight, by so-called other means, you open a floodgate for other countries with such ambitions to follow suit. And Nigeria has the blessed fortunes of many such countries already waiting in the wings. Also a policy such as this did not pay due diligence to the sacrifices of our men and women in service, particularly those who felled in defense of Bakassi Peninsula nor did it honor the resilience of Nigerian villagers and communities in the many years of atrocities against them by the Cameroonian defense forces. In fact ceding Nigerian territories to Cameroon is only a victory to the notorious Cameroonian germdarmes that pillaged Nigerian villages over the years and an open invitation to other countries with grand designs that our borders can be violated, if not by a shooting war but by other means.

Mar 2004