Former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, yesterday took issues with the Senate over its call for a review of last year�s cession of the oil-rich Bakassi Penin-sula to Cameroon, saying the upper legislative chamber was being economical with the truth.
The former president said the National Assembly was duly informed of the decision to hand over the Peninsula to Cameroon.
Obasanjo said the last Senate and House of Representatives under the leadership of Senator Ken Nnamani and Hon. Aminu Bello Masari were duly served the Green Tree Agreement between Nigeria and Cameroon on the ceding of Bakassi for ratification by the National Assembly.
He was however silent on whether or not the agreement was ratified by the National Assembly.
The Senate had in a motion last week criticised the former president for allegedly ceding the Peninsula to Cameroon without ratification by the National Assembly, describing the act as unconstitutional.
Obasanjo replied the Senate in a statement entitled, �On the Ratification of the Bakassi Green Tree Agreement� signed by his Media Assistant, Mr. Adeoba Ojekunle,
According to Ojekunle, �The former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, in two separate letters to the Senate and House of Representatives dated June 2006, officially conveyed to both chambers the said agreement including the modalities of implementation of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) judgment.�
He said the letter, which was officially copied to the Secretary of the Government of the Federation (SGF), Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and the Governor of Cross River State specifically in paragraph three (3), requested the Assembly�s �expeditious ratification of the Agreement�.
Ojekunle said; �This is contrary to the widely held view that the last assembly was kept in the dark concerning the agreement.
�The personal records of the former President indicate that the letter was duly received on June 15 2006 and acknowledged by the two chambers.
�A copy of former President Obasanjo�s letter dated June 15 2006 titled �ICJ Judgment Agreement between Nigeria and Cameroon� with reference number PRES /134 to the Senate President, Senator Ken Nnamani, read in parts: �I hereby attach the agreement between Nigeria and Cameroon on the modalities of implementation of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) judgment on the land and maritime dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon. I also attach a map signed by the Secretary General of the United Nations, and Presidents of Nigeria and Cameroon as an appendix to the agreement. I would appreciate your expeditious ratification of the agreement, please. Accept the assurances of my highest consideration�. Olusegun Obasanjo as President signed the letter.
�The letter was copied to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Attorney General of the Federation, Governor of Cross River State and Secretary to the Government of the Federation,� Ojekunle said.
Obasanjo had ceded the Peninsula to Cameroon on August 14, 2006 following the October 10, 2002 judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague and a June 12, 2006 agreement at Green Tree, New York where the former president agreed to surrender the Peninsula.
But after a debate on a motion entitled, �Impending Crisis in and Uncertain Fate of the People of Bakassi� jointly sponsored by Senator Bassey Ewa-Henshaw and 20 other Senators, the Senate resolved last Thursday to draw the attention of President Umaru Musa Yar�Adua to the breach of the constitution on the issue.
The upper legislative chamber specifically resolved to �draw the attention of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to the fact that the transfer of Bakassi and other parts of Nigeria to Cameroon under the agreement of June 12, 2006 without ratification by the National Assembly as required by Section 12 (1) of our Constitution is unconstitutional.�
Meanwhile, Senate�s decision to draw the attention of President Yar�Adua to the alleged constitutional breach in the ceding of the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon yesterday received the backing of indigenes of the area.
In a statement in Calabar, displaced indigenes of the area, under the auspices of Bakassi Elders Forum, commended the Senate for faulting the decision by the Obasanjo regime to hand over the Peninsula to Cameroon without ratification by the National Assembly.
The forum said the Senate had given them a sense of belonging to Nigeria because since the October 10, 2002 judgment of the ICJ, the people could not lay claim to any definite portion or parcel of land they could call their own.
According to the forum, �It is on record that the Bakassi people having been displaced since the ICJ judgment can not lay claim to any definite portion or parcel of land they can call their own despite the clear constitutional evidence and provision of Bakassi as still an integral part of Nigeria.�
The statement signed by the former deputy speaker of the Cross River State House of Assembly and alternate Chairman of the Forum, Hon. Patrick Antigha Ene, and Secretary of the Forum and past chairman of the council, Hon. Joe Etene, among others, said the judgment was an international conspiracy manipulated to promote and propagate parochial interest.
The forum said the Bakassi people were consoled that the Senate could take up the fight to protect their interest after years of suffering.
�The issue of Bakassi is and shall for a long time hunt the preponderance of the Nigerian population especially the Niger Delta region should we allow our identity, cultural and political and even linguistic identity to be relegated to the background,� it said.
The Forum noted that Nigeria�s 1999 Constitution, which recognised Bakassi as part of the country, had not been amended and could not be ceded to Cameroon without relevant amendments and or referendum by the people of Bakassi.
It also said 10 council wards, with long standing generational identity, could not just be submerged into already existing three wards in Akpabuyo Local Government Area with their own indigenes, clans and villages as suggested by a legislation tagged CRHA law number seven of April 12, 2007.
�It is in our own interest as owners and Aborigines of Bakassi to state manifestly that Bakassi had existed even before the Nigerian state gained independence in 1960,� the statement added.
Nov292007