Bakassi inhabitants opt for independence ahead of Nigerian pullout

Inhabitants of the disputed Bakassi Peninsula in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea have declared independence days before Nigeria is due to cede the area to Cameroon under a United Nations-backed settlement. Residents waved the territory’s new blue and white-striped flag at an independence ceremony called by the Bakassi Self Determination Movement on Sunday at Ekpot Abia, which is among land scheduled for handover by Nigeria to Cameroon from Saturday. “The people have declared their own republic!” said the group’s leader, Tony Ene, to the crowd. Ene claims to speak for all the peninsula’s estimated 150,000 – 300,000 population, though only a few hundred turned out for Sunday's special ceremony. The International Court of Justice at The Hague, Netherlands, ruled in October 2002 that the strip of 700 sq km territory that juts into the Atlantic along the frontiers of both countries belonged to Cameroon. The decision was based on a 1913 treaty between colonisers, Britain and Germany. President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government had angrily rejected the initial ruling before coming round to accept it following the mediation of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. After Annan's last meeting with Obasanjo and his Cameroonian counterpart Paul Biya in June, it was announced that Nigeria would finally pull out its troops in 60 to 90 days. Ownership of the peninsula, which is rich in oil and fish, brought the neighbours close to war in the 1980s. After Nigeria moved to fully occupy the disputed area in December 1994, Cameroon filed a case at the ICJ seeking to determine legal ownership. Nigeria has offered to resettle Bakassi inhabitants who do not wish to live under Cameroonian sovereignty. But self-determination campaigners have rejected the offer to leave what they consider their ancestral lands and condemn Obasanjo’s government for agreeing to concede the territory. dm/ss