The House of Represent-atives may not ratify the Green Tree Agreement between Nigeria and Cameroon signed by former president Olusegun Obasanjo ceding the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon.
But the head of Nigerian delegation on the Cameroon-Nigerian Joint Commission on Bakassi, Prince Bola Ajibola, yesterday dismissed speculations that the ceding of Bakassi, in compliance with the judgment of the World Court at The Hague was a huge loss to the country.
Some members of the House who spoke with THISDAY yesterday said the agreement would not be ratified.
�We were not carried along when Obasanjo was entering into this agreement,� a lawmaker representing a South-west constituency told THISDAY.
�We are not a rubber-stamp legislature. This has to do with the integrity of Nigeria. The agreement will be thrown out on the floor of the House,� he said.
The Senate had expressed similar reservations about how the treaty was signed by Obasanjo.
However, Ajibola, who spoke late yesterday at the Conference Room 415 of the House of Representatives when he briefed the leadership of the House, said Nigeria emerged from the World Court judgment on Bakassi better off, having made huge gains from the territories ceded to it along the Bakassi Peninsula, most especially with maritime boundary.
Ajibola who spoke to the House of Representatives on the state of Green Tree agreement signed by Nigeria and Cameroon, and now sent by the President to the National Assembly for ratification said that the maritime area gained by Nigeria is endowed with mineral recourses, whereas the land area offered Cameroon only had fish varieties.
He stated that he was aware that part of the maritime areas taken over by Nigeria contained an oil block worth $300billion, adding that Cameroon had laid claims to the specific area but for the World Court which insisted that Nigeria was more of the lawful owner based on evidence presented before the court.
He said: �I�m aware Cameroon came to the court hoping to be given a large part of the sea which in its thinking formed part of its territories. That was done in accordance with the 1982 law on Sea. But the court rejected Cameroon�s claims on the maritime area and offered it to Nigeria.
�If the court had favoured Cameroon, Nigeria would have suffered a colossal loss in terms of forfeiting that oil rich area part of which had been assessed to contain oil blocks worth over $300billion.�
Ajibola said the gain by Nigeria in Bakassi has the tendency to change the economic fortune of the country, a reason he appealed to the House of Representatives to ensure that the National Assembly ratifies the Green Tree Agreement.
He pointed out that the assessors who weighed the gains by both Cameroon and Nigeria over the court judgment had concluded that while Cameroon could boast of political gain, Nigeria was better off economically in terms of maritime and land boundaries at its disposal.
Ajibola said after the ratification of the agreement by Nigeria, it may be necessary to amend the Constitution in order to reflect the new boundary status of the country with reference to its new territories from Bakassi.
�From the start of the court case, it was glaring that Nigeria was never going to get a headway in laying claims to the Bakassi peninsula, Cameroon having been endowed with documentary and historical evidence pointing towards its lawful ownership of the area,� he said.
Ajibola told the lawmakers that the story of Cameroon�s ownership of Bakassi started as far back as 1913 with and Anglo-German agreement signed by United Kingdom and Germany, normally referred to by historians as the balkanization of Africa by Europe.
He said clauses 18 and 22 of the Anglo-German Agreement had ceded the Bakassi peninsula to Germany which according to him had put Cameroon as one of its colonies although Germany later lost Cameroon to France after the First World War.
Ajibola told the lawmakers that Nigeria contributed $6 million for the demarcation of the boundaries while the EU and the UK provided another $6 million.
�But we still need more money to complete the demarcation,� he said.
Speaker of the House, Hon. Dimeji Bankole, said after the interaction that the House was now more informed than before, noting that �whichever way you look at it, someone will be hurt either here or there.�
Apparently referring to the way the National Assembly was not carried along by Obasanjo who signed the document, the Speaker said: �I pray we do things that 50 years from now, our children will not blame us. It is a completely Nigerian issue and not Ajibola. We still have to take a decision on the floor of the House.�
But some of the members present were not satisfied that such an issue that touched on the sensibilities of the Nigerian nation could be taken unilaterally without consultation with the National Assembly.
But Ajibola disclosed: �I got nothing from the federal government and was not paid any salary for it. The Green Tree has been executed already all that is left is the demarcation of the final boundary. Cameroon is virtually in control of Bakassi. As a matter of fact, the people are not too interested where they belong. The resettlement is going on. It has been there. Our people can still be there. But they will remain under the control of Cameroon. By the 18th of August, the whole Agreement on Bakassi would have been completed.�
May152008