Bakassi: Reps to revisit ICJ judgment

By Johnbosco Agbakwuru

AGAINST the backdrop of the alleged killing of Nigerians by the Cameroon gendarmes and the threat by the displaced Bakassi people to reclaim the ceded oil-rich island from the Republic of Cameroon, the House of Representatives Committee on Treaty and Agreement has appealed to the displaced people to maintain peace, assuring that the House would do everything possible to protect Nigerians.

Nigeria had signed a Green Tree Agreement with Cameroon in 2006 after the International Court of Justice sitting in the Hague, Netherland had ruled in 2002 that Bakassi Peninsula belong to Cameroon, but the National Assembly has not ratified the agreement.

But the Bakassi indigenes through its Paramount Ruler, His Royal Majesty, Etinyin Etim Okon Edet said that the only option for the people was to go back to their ancestral land and take their destiny in their hands.

“The process is one and we are going back to our area, we will take it by any means possible, in the days of old our fore-fathers used to have traditional means, we don’t have any problem with Nigeria our problem is with the cameroun, they must leave our area and they are going to leave very soon. We have been assured that they will leave. Nigeria can go and leave us,” he said.

The House of Representatives Committee led by its chairman, Hon. Yacob Alebiousu Bush, while meeting with Bakassi Stakeholders at the Cross River State Council of Chiefs chambers, Calabar said that nobody would feel the pains of displacement more than the people that were affected.

Bush accompanied by the member representing Bakassi/Calabar South/Akpabuyo federal constituency, Hon. Esien Ayi, assured the people that there were some provisions in the agreement that have given them the right to once again look into it.