Cameroon set for Bakassi peninsula handover from Nigeria

Cameroon set for Bakassi peninsula handover from Nigeria
AFPPublished: Wednesday, August 13, 2008
AKWA, Cameroon - Nigeria was set to complete the handover of the Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon on Thursday, ending a 15-year dispute over a territory believed to contain considerable oil and gas reserves.
A flag-exchanging ceremony will complete the transfer of Bakassi, which juts into the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea.
The transfer which has been described by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as "a model for negotiated settlements of border disputes" will be "painful" for the regional powerhouse Nigeria, according to a presidential spokesman.
The handover, staggered over two years, has been dogged by political disagreements, a last-minute lawsuit and the odd gun battle.
A Cameroon government official said Thursday's finalization of the 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 US-facilitated mediation talks and in the presence of then UN secretary general Kofi Annan, paving the way for Nigeria's withdrawal from Bakassi.
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.
"This handing over process, as painful as it is for everyone including the President, is a commitment we have made to the international community and we have a responsibility to keep it," Yar'Adua's spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi, told reporters Tuesday.
The handover ceremony, hailed by the UN office for West Africa (UNOWA) as a "landmark" in Nigeria-Cameroon ties, will take place in the nearby Nigerian city of Calabar.
But Nigerian newspapers on Wednesday said Nigeria had beefed up security on the swampy peninsula suggesting the handover will take place there.
Nigerian officials were not immediately able to clarify the venue.
Bakassi, which is believed to contain oil and gas reserves as well as rich fishing grounds, has in recent months been the scene of clashes between Cameroonian soldiers and local armed groups opposed to the transfer.
Some 50 people have been killed in the clashes.
© AFP 2008