ABSTRACT
The major significance of this study is that it will examine and highlight Nigeria – Cameroon Relations from 1999 to 2004. It will also suggest how areas of conflict could be resolved by both countries. This project research also hopes to contribute to the academic literature on Nigeria’s foreign policy through coverage of a turbulent period in Nigeria – Cameroon history.
Following the judgement by the International Court of Justice that ceded 33 Nigerian villages around Lake Chad and some in the South-Eastern border with Cameroon which included Bakassi Peninsula, which is known to be very rich in oil, Nigeria – Cameroon relations have been affected by the judgement made by the International Court of Justice in 2003. The political relations between Nigeria and Cameroon since independence have been in a state of flux. The initial peace enjoyed by the two countries (Nigeria and Cameroon) as members of the Conservative Group of African States which formed the Monrovia Group in the years immediately after independence in 1960, soon shifted from periods of pretentious friendship and cooperation to cold war and even military confrontation. It has been underlined that by the virtue of a common border and the controversial boundary demarcation between Nigeria and Cameroon, the relationship between the two countries have been marred by constant and severe border conflicts.
Nigeria – Cameroon relations have been marred by border disputes which is a colonial creation. This does not mean that there was no frontier existing before the coming of the colonial powers, however, the border as we know it today evolved from the arbitrary manner in which African borders were created. The problems that bedevilled the creation of this border were neatly handed over to both countries at independence. What ensued after independence and the post-plebiscite era was constant border clashes. Consequently and in realization of the dangerous dimension the border clashes may lead to, the International Court of Justice judgement in 2003 has put settlement machinery into motion by both governments.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION:
BACKGROUND TO THE NIGERIA-CAMEROON CRISIS
The boundary dispute between Nigeria and the Cameroon Republic arising from their long, but ill-defined border (1680 kilometres or 1050 miles) is of colonial origin. However, it has remained a source of conflict in the direct bilateral relations of the two countries since their independence. In one form or the other, the dispute has engaged the attention of almost all Nigerian governments since 1960. Many informed Nigerians believe that the Balewa government in the First Republic lost an opportunity to resolve the dispute to Nigeria’s maximum satisfaction in 1960-1961. That opportunity, they claim, was lost because of a myopic and fratricidal conception of national interest in Nigeria’s domestic politics. That loss continues to haunt to date particularly with respect to the maritime section where its acclaimed vital security and strategic interest stand threatened, and also where Nigeria continues to suffer the humiliation of seeing the Cameroonian authorities administer a territory in the disputed area whose population is 90 percent Nigerian nationals.1 Ironically, what was considered a national blunder in the immediate independence period was almost re-enacted in 1975, this time more consciously, when the Gowon administration signed the Maroua agreement with president Ahidjo’s government in Cameroon, an agreement which, effectively would have ceded the channel of the Calabar River and a portion of the Cross River estuary to the Cameroon. As it turned out, the Maroua agreement is null and void in law as it was never ratified by the Nigeria, leaving open the prospect of new form of arrangement with the Cameroonians for solving the dispute in a mutually beneficial manner to both sides.2
The dispute between Cameroon and Nigeria over the Bakassi Peninsula has assumed great prominence because of its richness in oil. It is important to note, however, that the case of Bakassi is only one element in the dispute that extends to the land boundary between Nigeria and Cameroon from the Lake Chad region to the Coast. This long standing dispute over the ownership of the Bakassi Peninsula which was apparently laid to rest by the ruling of the International Court of Justice provides an example of judicial arbitration at the international level. The ownership of the Bakassi Peninsula was a protracted dispute that involved several attempts by leaders and representatives of both countries to resolve although without success. Indeed, such has been the doggedness of both countries to their claims that it witnessed the eruption of violence on a number of occasions