By BARTHOLOMEW MADUKWE

Following last Tuesday’s resolution of the House of Representatives r that the Federal Government should review judgment of the  International Court of Justice, ICJ,  that ceded  Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon in 2002, Vanguard Law and Human Right sought the views prominent lawyers, including Senior Advocates and Professors of Law.

Excerpts:

Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN)

The Reps., obviously, have no international lawyer as their staff. Otherwise, they would not be wasting time and resources talking about that. How can the Federal Government revert a decision of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which has far been implemented. It is not possible.

It is like the Supreme Court having taken a decision and you say it should be reversed. Even if you go to the ICJ, it cannot be reversed anymore. You can go back to say that some fundamental facts, which you were not aware of when it did its judgment, has since arisen.

And in the light of those new facts, the Court should reconsider its judgment, which is within six months. Now it is over ten years. So it is a lost case, there is nothing anyone can do except to go to war against Cameroun. If we do that, the consequences will be terrific.

On the “Green Field” agreement, to have been binding on Nigeria after it must have passed through the ratification of the National Assembly, that is an internal impact that is within the Nigeria system. The international community and international law is not interested in our domestic system.

Once you have signed or ratified, that is the end of it. Whether you are inefficient within your domestic system and you do not fulfill the requirement of your domestic law, it has no impact on international laws and international relations at all.

So that is our own problem. It is not a problem for the United Nations, the International Court of Justice or any other body outside Nigeria. It is not their problem, it is our problem.

Lanre Ogunlesi (SAN)

Well! If there is a new fact to support the new suit, then they can do so. Yes these are new facts, but I don’t see the new facts that will now avail them because the parties were the same before, the issues were the same, now what so facts would they have said were now not available at the time the matter was in court? Courts matters are not done in piece-meal.

Saying that the decision of the Federal Government was in breach of Section 12 of the 1999 Constitution, which says that the Green Field agreement has to go through the ratification of the National Assembly, which is an internal problem and not the World Court problem.

What will the new facts change, will it change the fact that the land does not belong to Bakassi? Those are the things that have to be looked at. They were there when the matter was taken to World Court and you see this is an internal matter, not external. So the new facts will not affect the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Prof Oyelowo Oyewo

That is probably a joke. A big joke because the ICJ judgment is being implemented and those are some of the things that you don’t understand. There are so many articles we have  written in the last year; they don’t invite any intellectual input into their discussions before they make such a pronouncement. It is a disgrace.

The European Government and the US Government have all contributed money. There is a work that is being done, that was financed by a German Human Rights outreach. There is a book that was contributed to scholars to contribute for the implementation and it has been implemented. I don’t know what they are talking about.

Judgment is not something that you wake up one day and say “go and set the judgment aside”.  And who will set aside the ICJ judgment; do they think it is the Nigerian judgment? This people should stop putting us in the light that the whole world will be laughing at us.

How would they say that the Green Tree Agreement was a breach of the Nigeria Constitution? Look there was a judgment, we are not talking about a treaty and Nigeria held itself bound by that judgment. Nigeria and Cameroun constituted a body for the implementation of that judgment under the aegis of the office of the Secretary General of the United Nation. Government of other countries had contributed money, what is Nigeria doing all this while?

Seriously, they should face things that are more important than all these.  Let them give us light.

Chief Morah Ekwunoh

Whether the fresh process will seek to set aside or vary the ICJ judgment, it will fall flat like a pack of cards or house on a quick-sand. This is because the Court having delivered its judgment, is functus officio and cannot revisit same for purposes of writing another one, in its stead, on the same or similar issue. Otherwise there will never be end to litigations.

Variation of same can only be done in order to correct clerical or grammatical errors, or for enabling its meaning come out clearly, as to bring into being its easy enforcement.   In the present case, non of these situation exists to warrant a revisit of the judgment, which in any case is already executed with shameful funfare from Nigerian leadership.

Clinging on the tiny straw of defects in the “Green Tree” agreement, which I admit exist, does not provide any magical oxygen needed to resuscitate the dead horse in the Nigerian case, since there is always presumption of regularity in processes leading to official or judicial acts.

Bamidele Aturu

Well! I agree with them, that if there are circumstances showing that the decision of the ICJ could not be defended or rationalized, then the government should not abandon the Bakassi people. Whether we like it or not, there are affiliations between them and our people here and it is difficult for Nigeria to just forget about them.

So whatever the government can do, on the sense of the Bakassi people, I think it is worth doing.  Ofcourse, government may begin to raise issues of the matter which have already been decided. But I think we should look at our own interest as a nation and the interest of our people in Bakassi. These people have been Nigerians and to just take them away from their social relationship with us, I think it is creating a strong dislocation.