Some people are politicising NGA, CMR boundary demarcation - Owan-Enoh

The Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation, Mr. John Owan-Enoh, has disagreed with the Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba (SAN), and the Cross River State Chairman of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP), Mr. Cletus Obun, over claims that there was the possibility of ceding some communities in the central part of the state to Cameroon.

Recently, there was an alarm from Biajua and Danare communities that the current boundary demarcation between Nigeria and Cameroon in some parts of the state would result in the ceding of communities in the central senatorial district to Cameroon.

Raising the alarm recently, Obun who is also community leader in Boki Local Government Area, said eight local government areas in the state would be ceded to Cameroon if the demarcation was done without recourse to locating pillar 113A by representatives of Cameroon-Nigeria Mixed Commission.

The Senate Leader, Victor Ndoma-Egba, the representative of the central senatorial district had taken the matter to the floor of the senate for deliberation and necessary action to stop the communities from being ceded to Cameroon about six years after Bakassi peninsula was ceded to Cameroon.

Ndoma-Egba had called for a negotiation of boundaries between the two countries where it became absolutely necessary so as to keep the affected communities within the country.

"The people have their traditional boundary, which is about 9.6 kilometres beyond where they want to put the pillar.

"Boundaries are forever being negotiated. They are international boundaries. I was reminded by the Attorney-General of Cross River State, because he was also at the public hearing, that the ICJ judgment even said where the parties can, they can negotiate their boundaries.

"So, at this point, let us negotiate our international boundaries to incorporate their traditional boundaries. I don't see why that should be impossible," Ndoma-Egba had told journalists in Calabar.

But, Owan-Enoh who is currently representing Obubra /Etung federal constituency has faulted the claims that the communities including his own, Abgokim in Etung Local Government Area, were at the verge of being ceded to Cameroon.

Owan-Enoh told journalists in Calabar that based on his investigation, some people must have been playing politics with the boundary issue because there are no attempts to cede any area including his community to Cameroon.

Responding to a question on the allegations that some communities in Boki and Etung in particular were about to be ceded to Cameroon, Owan-Enoh, a senatorial aspirant said: "Boundary with Cameroon: The first time I heard about this was when my name was always being mentioned as one of the areas that is going to go to Cameroon. Yes, whether that was politics, I don't understand. But, I tell you the truth now. It is not true.

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 doesn't have to be politics. The session that was called in the National Assembly, I was there in the senate." 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 will be ceded to Cameroon.

"And I went there to go and check. Before I went there, I was told that some years back, people from my village , some youths, had organised and gone to that place and removed the pillar and threw the pillar into the river. But, that some weeks to the time I was talking with them, that some people have come and erected a pillar....

"Because if you look at all indications about the pillar thing, 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. You know what we found out? 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 the location of the pillars to identify the boundaries of both communities was being carried out with efficiency.

"Do you know the implication of that? "That whatever technical equipment they are using, it doesn't matter whether you have removed a pillar; they still locate the pillar where 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. It is not true," he said.

Observing that inaccuracy of facts in matters usually proves disastrous, Owan-Enoh declared: "And I told some people when I got out of there. I said this is how we get Nigeria to take action and loose. Because if you take action based on sentiments; the proper thing is there, you go to court, you go and loose as a country."