Nigeria has begun pulling its troops out of the Bakassi peninsula ahead of Friday’s deadline to hand it over to Cameroon, the Nigerian military said on Monday.
The International Court of Justice ruled in 2002 that Nigeria should turn over Bakassi, which has offshore oil deposits, to its eastern neighbor after a decades-long dispute which nearly brought the two countries to war in 1981.
Nigeria cited “technical difficulties” for missing a September 2004 deadline to pull out, but agreed on June 12 this year to withdraw within 60 days.
“The pullout has already started and I assure you that by Monday next week at the latest the total pullout by the Nigerian army will be complete,” said Brigadier General Felix Chukwuma, head of information at the Defense Ministry.
Nigeria has a brigade, normally numbering between 1,500 and 3,000 soldiers, stationed in the remote, swampy peninsula on the Gulf of Guinea coast.
The media will be escorted to Bakassi on Friday to witness the withdrawal, and a military ceremony marking its completion will probably be held on Monday, Chukwuma added.
After almost four years of delays, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo finally agreed to implement the international court ruling at a meeting in June with Cameroonian President Paul Biya at the United Nations in New York.
The June agreement was overseen by Germany, Britain, France and the United States, and those countries will also monitor its implementation.
Under this deal, Nigerians who remain in Bakassi can keep their citizenship and Nigeria will continue to administer the western part of the territory for two years.
The handover presents few problems from an oil perspective, because the existing offshore concessions mostly respect the court-sanctioned boundary. Bakassi itself has no proven oil or gas deposits on land.
Many Nigerian residents of Bakassi have opposed a handover, arguing that they did not want to become Cameroonians. Nigeria has offered them the option of moving to an alternative site nearby in Nigeria.
Some youth groups have threatened to secede from both countries, but local government authorities and traditional monarchs have said they will go along with the decision.
U.N. officials say the population varies from 25,000 to 250,000 as fishermen flock to the peninsula’s rich waters at certain times of the year.