Fresh rumble as CMR eyes other oil-rich communities in Cross River

Calabar — Like Oliver Twist, the ceding of the Bakassi Penninsular to the Republic of Cameroun, may not be enough as it is currently angling for further slice of Nigeria’s oil- rich communities close to the territory.

The people of Danare and Biajua communities of Boki Local Government Area in Cross River State had for some months now been raising the alarm and drawing Federal Government’s attention to the fact that eight local government areas of several communities in the state would be ceded to Cameroon if the demarcation of Nigeria-Cameroon boundary was done without recourse to locating pillar 113A by representatives of Cameroon/Nigeria Mixed Commission.

Buoyed by the successful ceding of Bakassi Peninsula to it by the United Nations (UN), through the International Court of The Hague, Republic of Cameroun has commenced the demarcation of border villages in Cross River State in preparation for its full annexation. The government of Cameroun in conjunction with some officials of the UN embarked on the exercise early in the year, according to a petition to the Cross River State Governor, Liyel Imoke, written by one of the communities affected in the demarcation exercise. These border villages were not among the Nigerian communities ceded to the Republic of Cameroun in the aftermath of the judgment by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), sitting at The Hague, which awarded the ownership of the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroun. Since then, Nigeria had lost some villages to that country.

In a petition signed by community leaders, including, Mr. Clement Abang; the Village Head, Chief Kekong K. Abang; Youth Leader, Mr. Lawcity Mbia, and three others, for and on behalf of the Danare community to the State Governor, Senator Liyel Imoke, they alleged that new boundaries are being created by some of the surveyors charged with the responsibility of providing correct boundaries in communities bordering Nigeria and Cameroon.

The petition titled ‘Protest Against the Illegal Demarcation of Nigeria-Cameroon Boundary’ at the Danare axis, the petitioners recalled that the Nigeria-Cameroon Joint Commission, in conjunction with the United Nations are retracing the boundary consequent upon the judgement of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague over the Bakassi Peninsula dispute.

They argued that, “surveyors saddled with the responsibility of retracing the pillars depicting the boundary started the job in that axis of the boundary from pollar110 to pillar113, some metres away from the primary school,’Danare 1? in Boki Local Government area. Efforts at retracing pillar 113A about 9.6 km from pillar 113 by the surveyors had proved abortive”.

Consequent upon their inability to retrace pillar 113 A, the Danare community asked the surveyors “to stop creating new boundaries and visit the archives to access information on the issue or request the appropriate authority to oblige them with well-defined maps that will enable them to navigate the seeming confusing situation they are confronted with.”

According to them, “as the people could not locate 113A and 114 A, Nigeria will suffer loss of not only thousands of kiolmetres of cash crop farms, more than 20 Nigerian communities will be ceded to Cameroon. In the history of the border between Nigeria and Cameroon, Danare 1 is a Nigerian community at the border between Nigeria and Cameroon”.

Tension is mounting in the communities as the petition is coming after the resistance put up by Biajua and Danare youths in Boki LGA which aborted the wrong demarcation of Nigeria/Cameroon boundary some months ago. The fear of the people of the communities was heightened by the absence of Cross River State representative in the team.

The State’s Commissioner for Justice and Attorney General, Mr. Atta Ochinke, in a reaction, dispelled rumour of Nigeria or Cameroon losing any territory.

He said that, “the demarcation that is going on there is to re-establish the Anglo German boundary line which the World Court adopted as the boundary between Nigeria and Cameroon. It is not a new line and it is not cutting any territory of Nigeria into Cameroon. The action is not demarcating any new territory, but re-establishing a boundary line that has existed for over a hundred years.”

Ochinke said that, “the communities were expressing anxiety because these are communities that are virtually right on the boundary line. The communities both on the Nigerian and Cameroon sides are actually one community, one people and they have very little respect to the boundary line in the way they live their lives. But, of course, the boundary line is something they have always known and since the boundary line is so close to the communities. None of those communities are ignorant of where the boundary line is”

He explained that, “what is causing their current anxiety is that there is one boundary pillar that they are looking for that has not been found. So, the present exercise by the commission is for them to establish the location of this pillar 113A. It has nothing to do with ceding Nigerian territory to Cameroon or Cameroon territory to Nigeria. But when boundary demarcation activities are taking place in communities that are virtually living on the boundary, you will know that every inch that you turn is bound to raise anxiety.

“Now the anxiety in the communities is that the existence of pillar 113A is something they are not aware of and it is strange to them. We are all looking to establishing where pillar 113A is. It is not that anybody wants to cede territory to Cameroon. Nigeria has not lost any new area to Cameroon. The boundary line which was established over a hundred years ago has not changed,” he stated.

The Senate Leader, Chief Victor Ndoma-Egba,who represents Central Senatorial district of Cross River State, was uncomfortable and took the matter to the floor of the senate for deliberation and necessary action aimed at stopping the communities from being ceded to Cameroun.He caused a public hearing on the matter on the floor of the Senate, which attracted parties including the Surveyor General of the Federation, Professor Peter Nwilo, the Attorney General, Mr. Mohammed Adoke and others.

But what terrified the people of the communities were comments of the Surveyor General and the member, representing Etung/Obubra Federal Constituencies in the House of Representative, Mr. John Owan-Enoh, that no community in Cross River was threatened by loss of territory to Cameroon even when pillar 113A had not been found and the final outcome of the public hearing on the matter was still pending.

The Surveyor-General of the Federation, Prof. Peter Nwilo had said that Bakassi Peninsular does not belong to Nigeria, but Cameroon.

Nwilo made the clarification when he featured as a guest on a News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja, saying that based on available facts, the disputed territory actually belonged to Cameroon.

According to him, Nigeria lost the territory to Cameroon based on a judgment of International Court of Justice in The Hague in October 2002.

“I know that the available facts did not weigh in favour of Nigeria…the facts they (Cameroon) had at their disposal did not favour Nigeria and that was why we lost it (Bakassi).

On his own part,Owan-Enoh who is also the Chairman, House Committee on Appropriation had, recently, in a media briefing in Jorany Hotel, Calabar, disagreed with the Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, and people of Danare/Biajua communities on the controversial boundary issue between Nigeria and Cameroon in Central Senatorial district.

Owan-Enoh declared that based on his investigation, some people must have been playing politics with the boundary issue because there was no attempts to cede any area including his own Abgokim in Etung council or any other community to Cameroon.

Owan-Enoh who is aspiring to go to the senate said that, ” whether that was politics, I don’t understand, but it is not true because those people who said those things have not even gone there. I have gone to a pillar in my village. I will like us to be very practical. It is not everything that is politics. Everything does not have to be politics.”

Owan-Enoh said after the session in the senate, he went to his community to find out facts about the allegation that some parts of the Central Cross River would be ceded to Cameroon, “I went there to check. I was told that some years back, people from my village and some youths, had organised and gone to that place and removed the pillar and threw it into the river and some other people have erected a pillar.

“After the pillar that is causing the controversy in Boki, the next pillar is the one in my village. And we took a boat ride up the river. What we found was that the same point that the old pillar had been taken out is the same point that the new pillar had been erected”.

Owan-Enoh said that the location of the pillars to identify the boundaries of both communities was being carried out with efficiency. “With the technical equipment they are using, it does not matter whether you have removed a pillar. They will still locate the pillar wherever it was. So, it is not true that any part of Etung or my community or any part is going to be ceded to Cameroon as a result of what is going on.”

But the communities would hardly accommodate such comments. Piqued by the positions of Owan-Enoh and the Surveyor General, the Danare and Biasua communities are threatening to pull out of Nigeria and declare self-independence if no serious action is taken to address their fears.

Speaking on behalf of the Boki people recently, a Community Leader in Danare and former member representing Boki 1 in the State House of Assembly, Mr. Cletus Obun said, “for Owan-Enoh the representative of Etung/Obubra in the Federal House of Representatives and the Attorney General and Surveyor General of the Federation to say that there is no dispute is treasonable. It is my take that the Surveyor General of the Federation should be tried for treason.

“On the face of it, when did pillars become boundary lines in international survey standard? Even by the minimum standard of International Survey, are pillars boundary lines,” he asked?

He explained that pillars are only indicators of special geographical features. For instance, a pillar here points to the fact that there is a hill that has special interest or river. It is not a boundary line but a demarcation point internationally or locally.

“So the insistence of pillar as a boundary line and using it as a boundary line is to short change Nigeria once again and compel it to concede part of our land. It is totally provocative for the Surveyor General who is not an indigene of the area to keep insisting on this line and ensuring that Nigerians are displaced and homeless as is the case in Bakassi. It is the error of Bakassi we are about to pay for again in the hinterland and I think it should be resisted”.

Obun warned that, “If the Nigerian government does not stop its officials like this Surveyor General who are making unguided comments about the judgement they seem not to understand or are bent on misinterpreting, we will lose not just Bakassi but two oil wells. Nigerians in that area (Danare/Biajua) will resist this and will prepare to declare a republic of its own under extant international treaty to which Nigeria is a signatory. There are several declarations by the United Nations that make it possible for us and since Nigeria is bent on giving us to Cameroon and we don’t want to become Cameroonians, we are free under extant UN declarations to proclaim a sovereign country of our own and that is the ‘Ambasonia Republic’.

He stated further that, “we are saying this so that Nigeria and the international community will take notice of what is about to happen to us. We are about to be handed over to Cameroon without a referendum or plebiscite against the UN declaration on the right of indigenous people. The declaration has 21 articles bleeding with the rights of indigenous people on where they can belong. By this singular action, Nigeria is again about to make us stateless as they have done to the people of Bakassi down the peninsular. The Boki people of this area will resist it.

“With this, it is very clear that the member representing Etung/Obubra in the House of Representatives is not acting in good faith and I plead with him not to politicize this matter because it will amount to provocation. This is an election year we know, but this is not an election matter. So, we don’t want anybody to score political points and cheap political favours by the kind of pronouncement he makes about the lives and future of generations unborn.”

The people argued that at the Senate invitation on public hearing on the boundary issue and the missing Pillar 113A, the surveyor General of the Federation and the Attorney General of the Federation were acting the advocate for the Cameroon Government by insisting on a judgement that clearly stated that where in the cause of the implementation of the judgement, there is a dispute to the demarcation process, reference should be made to the United Nation’s security council through the Secretary General of the United Nation. The Green Tree “Agreement reinforces that position and even this commission.

Now 113A was not found and an imaginary projection was being put in place. The community and the Cross River State government objected to it, but the federal authorities, represented by the Attorney General of the Federation and Surveyor General of the Federation are insisting on taking a short projection away from the original boundary line.

Obun stated that within the Boki sector of the boundary, there were problems locating pillar 113A even when 113 and 114 were found. “The contractor, a Zimbabwean, opted to take a short projection towards the Nigerian end in Biajua which the youths of the community resisted and in-spite of the fact that the senate intervened to forestall another part of our territory being ceded, the exercise continued. That was the fear of the community as well.

The insistence of the communities is that there are traditional boundaries between the Cameroon communities of Buda/Mandajigi and Danare and Biajua of the Nigerian side and that traditional boundary has been the River Baje. In trying to locate pillar 113A, it was agreed before the senate committee that the Cross River Government should assist the Federal Government to clear over 300 square metres of the areas they suspected that pillar 113A should be, and that they have done. “Since they could not locate 113A, the next thing that ought to be done was to go back to ICJ through the UN Security Council, through the office of the Secretary General of the UN as enshrined in the ICJ judgement. The ICJ judgement stipulates how such disputes are adjudicated upon,” Obun posited.