Chief Richard Akinjide (SAN), former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, said yesterday in Ibadan that the Senate was right in repudiating the transfer of the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroun.
Akinjide said it was wrong for former President Olusegun Obasanjo to have ceded the Bakassi and other areas to Cameroun without legislative approval as required by the Constitution. He declared:
“The Senate is right in its decision, because the former government was wrong not to have taken the matter to the Senate as required by the Constitution.
“Bakassi, as at the time, was part of Nigeria and one of the local governments in the country listed in the constitution.”
Akinjide, who was Nigeria’s leading counsel in the case at the Hague, said nobody had the right to effect the judgment without recourse to national laws.
“How can any single person, be he President of the country or minister, single handedly cede Bakassi to a foreign country without complying with the constitution?” he asked.
He noted that “as far as our law is concerned, the transfer is null and void, because the schedule where Bakassi is listed is in the constitution.
“Can you really do that without going to the legislature?” the former minister queried.
Akinjide said for the transfer to be constitutional, “government must domesticate the judgment in accordance with our laws”.
“You cannot take a foreign judgment without domesticating it as required by the constitution or in accordance with the constitution,” he asserted.
Chief Akinjide spoke in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN). The Senate on Thursday advised the Federal Government to stop further transfer and hand over of some Nigerian territories to the Cameroun. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) had in its ruling in October 2002 ceded the territories to Cameroun.
In rejecting the handing over of the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula and other parts of the country to the Cameroun, the Senate described the action as “illegal” and “unconstitutional”.Prince Bola Ajibola, the Co-Chairman of Nigeria/Cameroon Mixed Commission, had on Thursday described the Senate’s motion on the Bakassi dispute as regrettable.
He said in Abeokuta that the Senate’s action was capable of throwing Nigeria into a war with Cameroon. Ajibola said: “They cannot brush aside the actions and decisions of the Federal Government. What they need to do is to hear what we have done. The law expects them to hear from our side, before taking any action.
“They have their own role to play, but all they need to do now is to ratify what the Federal Government has done. The act of government is what is called in International Law “Erga omnes”. That is what the government has done, what they need to do is to ratify it.”
Ajibola said he had spent 22 years representing Nigeria on the Bakassi issue, “representing the nation to ensure peace”.
Nigeria ceded the Peninsula to Cameroon on Aug. 14, 2006 in consonance with a judgment of the ICJ at the Hague on Oct. 10, 2002. Obasanjo signed an agreement with Cameroon’s President Paul Biya at Green Tree, New York, on June 12, 2006 to implement the judgment. The Federal Government had already implemented the judgment in conjunction with the affected states, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Borno, Taraba and Adamawa. The affected indigenes of the area had already been resettled.
However, other Nigerians continue to react to the Senate action.
In his own reaction, Prof. Pat Utomi called for caution in the handling of issues concerning the disputed Bakassi Peninsula.
He said that caution was necessary to avert aggravating problems over the execution of decisions of the International Court of Justice.
Utomi, the ADC presidential candidate in the April 21 polls, that there was the need for the Senate to consider the consequences of their pronouncements on Bakassi.
He noted that their current stance, could trigger crisis between Nigeria and Cameroun.
“We must be cautious in order to avoid anything that can lead to war over the peninsula”, he said, adding that the Senate should be more concerned in the well-being of Nigerians relocated from Bakassi.
“While the best interest of Nigeria must be advanced, there is need for a politically sound conclusion on Bakassi, that must be people-oriented,” he added.