The Bakassi problem and the limits of democracy

Wednesday, 05 July 2006 01:50

Written by Bankole A. Okuwa Ph. D.

 

THE BAKASSI PENINSULA  PROBLEM

      The problem of Bakassi has become an insolvable and difficult diplomatic issue for Nigeria, for many reasons.  First, when a national society; a nation or a geographical entity such as ours, loses part of its physical size to another national community, it often occurs only as a result of wars.  No nation would concede part of its physical size to any other nation by court order as it is the situation with us, the Cameroon and the hapless International Court of Justice at The Hague. The whole geographical expanse of modern Cameroon was acquired by  Britain and France from Germany after the latter lost World War I to them in 1918. This period initiated the bi-lingual situation in contemporary Cameroon. Likewise, when Palestine was taken and given to the Jews after WW II, the British had it as part of its colonial empire over which it had absolute political control. The consequence, since 1948, has been no peace for the displaced Palestinians and the Jewish occupiers.
      This article is not advocating war between Nigeria and Cameroon but it wishes to postulate that it is unusual in modern diplomacy, it’s foolhardy, it’s irrational, it’s unwise, unsound and absolutely grotesque for our federal government to agree to severe the Bakassi Peninsula, an integral part of physical Nigeria, where the Efiks live, to Cameroon as a result of the opinion of  International Court Justice at The Hague. The ICJ is not capable of enforcing its own decisions because it does not possess any police system or any other capability to do so. As an individual, I feel amazed when some of our leaders who have shown no respect for our basic laws, that is, our constitution at home want us to believe that they believe in the concept of the ‘Rule of Law’ at the international level. Having lost at The Hague, Nigeria should have embarked upon seeking a political solution to the Bakassi peninsula issue alone. No nation is known to have surrendered such a huge amount of economic resources and a sizable portion of its population to another either by court order or voluntarily. Our problem is the failure of our diplomacy. Before this article begins to make its adequate and relevant references to border and land disputes between nations in many parts of the world, it is pertinent to establish that the contemporary Nigerian presidency mishandled the Bakassi Peninsula issue, even though the preceding Nigerian military governments are guilty of incompetence in their pursuit of spurious policies to sustain the security of the peninsula and its Nigerian population.   
                 As a negative prelude to the entire scenario, President Obasanjo was reported to have committed Nigeria to whatever opinion the ICJ would deliver on October 10, 2002. Our president’s prior commitment to abide by the ICJ opinion/ruling before the judgment was delivered on October 10, 2002  was given to Paul Biya and Kofi Annan somewhere in Europe. As the chief diplomat of the nation, the president’s committal to Paul Biya and Kofi Annan was a huge mistake. When the ICJ opinion was finally delivered on October 10, 2002  Nigeria found itself in a difficult position because of its unnecessary and undiplomatic blunder which the president had earlier made.
       Shortly after the ICJ’s decision in favour of Cameroon, Nigeria had a political option to adjust its position in our national interest to keep or share the Bakassi peninsula with Cameroon.  First, the population is overwhelmingly Nigerian. Its local government functions as part of the Cross River State since the inception of the state. The Efik Nigerians have always voted to choose their representatives whenever the civilian governments held sway since Nigerian independence in 1960. The residents of Bakassi believe themselves as Nigerians because they have always participated in all decision-making processes since the Nigerian nation was born. Therefore, in the circumstance they should be given the world acclaimed privilege to determine their future instead of being partitioned into Cameroon as implied by the ICJ’s judicial opinion. A political option would have necessitated presenting the whole issue on Bakassi peninsula to the United Nations’ Security Council for deliberation and consideration. Nigeria has all the diplomatic options and material resources to vigorously pursue a face-saving alternative to the embarrassing consequence she now faces.  Second, if the President has the constitutional right to commit Nigeria to International Treaties such as the Green Tree Estate treaty without the participating role of our National Assembly or a part of it, does our president presumably also have the power to excise or severe part of our country to another in the prevailing circumstances? The National Assembly should go to work immediately and figure out the best choices for our country.  Nigeria is a federal system and the loss or the excise of a state or part of a state to another sovereign state is a situation not imagined or envisaged when the 1999 Nigerian constitution was hurriedly written. Those who have been calling for a true federal system for Nigeria should continue to agitate for it because what we have today is a pseudo-federal system run as a unitary system.  Therefore Mr. President’s signature in the document purportedly sponsored by Mr. Kofi Annan on behalf of the United Nations and witnessed by the traditional imperial and colonial powers of Old Europe may not carry the validity envisaged.  Third, Mr. President did not involve the affected people; the Efiks, or their state or federal representatives in the discussions that led to the Green Tree document. Chief. Etim  Okon Enet, the paramount ruler of Bakassi is angry and disappointed with the way Mr. President handled the Bakassi issue.  It is therefore unacceptable to all the people of the thirty-three villages in Bakassi local government area of Cross River State.  The Cameroonians in Bakassi are far less in number than the Nigerians and suddenly they have become the owners of the peninsula under the civilian dictatorship of Cameroon.  Fourth, the scepter of war has been effectively used as a blackmail to make the international political community believe that the Bakassi peninsula dispute cannot be resolved unless through war between Nigeria and Cameroon.  Mr. Annan has succeeded in using his overbearing influence as an African Secretary General of the U. N. to broker an unfair, unreasonable and unjustified amity between Nigeria and Cameroon over the Bakassi peninsula.  How much has Annan done between Ethiopia and Eritrea?  In Somalia; a stateless community for fifteen years, how much has Mr. Annan achieved as the African U. N. Secretary General to bring the war lords together?  In Ivory Coast, has the northern part returned its partial sovereignty to Abidjan for reconciliatory purposes?  The situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo where democratic election continues to be pushed forward needs concerted effort and assistance from the U. N. Secretary General. How about the genocide and all the attendant skirmishes in Darfur? Nigeria, as a major African nation, always has the potential for helping the United Nations  bring peace to all these trouble spots in Africa. But the same Nigeria is not given its due respect and is being pushed around in order to remain passive, even in the face of denying her its rights in the comity of nations. The political elite should wake up and lead our nation aright. The first black nation that has the potential to help itself and become a medium economic power and a major democracy in the world is obviously Nigeria, if its leaders can afford the quality leadership, sacrifice and devotion  required to achieve them.  The G-8 nations for instance prefer to continue discussing the economic problems of the developing nations and how they could be of assistance. As long as developing nations continue to ask for economic assistance from the G-8, all political calculations about world politics can be predicted and ultimately controlled.
  Is Kofi Annan using his West African connection and root as a Ghanaian to unduly pressure and spin Nigeria into accepting an unjustified solution in Bakassi?   The political problems that beset Liberia, Sierra Leone, Gambia and Ivory Coast in West Africa have been mostly borne by Nigeria’s efforts to bring political stability to the West Africa sub-region.
      A good number of Nigerian professionals have made comments which are considered positive and reasonable, but unacceptable in the circumstance.  First, the Civil Rights of Nigerians born and bred in Bakassi are being denied.  In the present situation, the right to self-determination which should have been discussed in all its ramifications with the Efik Nigerian residents of Bakassi has been denied them.  This is a core civil rights issue which is very fundamental to human life and existence.  It seems to me that in our own part of the world, that is, in Africa, liberty, freedom and such similar concepts as social and political values do not mean much in our consciousness until we run into some conflict with the law of the land or the corrupt tendencies of our police network.  Freedom as an individual socio-political value became established with the French Revolution of 1789 in Europe, but in Africa, the European colonial rule and policies suppressed the growth and awareness of individualism as a major political concept.  The Bakassi Nigerians and its entire Efik population deserve the privilege and honour to self-determination in the circumstances.  The U. N. knows it and it is its duty to promote it. Mr. Kofi Annan as the Secretary-General of the United Nations owes it to all peoples of all nations in the universe to choose their own type of government in the circumstance.  
      It is ironic to see the erstwhile colonial powers; Britain, France, and Germany congratulate Nigeria while at the same time applying diplomatic pressure and encouraging her to give up Bakassi to Cameroon which is a French stooge.  They created the initial problem in 1913 by using naked force to seize and partition African lands.  The 1913 Anglo-German document signed on Bakassi should have been thrown out by the International Court of Justice in The Hague.  Why?  It was a treaty between two alien powers about the future of a traditionally sovereign community who had no role in drafting the imposed treaty.  The United States is always on the side of the West-European nations vis a vis Bakassi because it is a cultural extension of Britain and other European nations in the Western Hemisphere. It is now their leader within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and they all share and operate imperial democracy as a common political ideology.  Will any of these nations accept giving away an inch of their geographical land mass in consequence of ICJ decision in any circumstances?  No.  Didn’t Britain go to war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands in the eighties? Is Falkland British by any natural means? No.    Will the United States allow Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands to become independent states even if the demand is made by the inhabitants of these islands?  No.  France continues to firmly hold on to its former colonies in West Africa, disrupting the development of a common West African currency and the growth of ECOWAS: a regional economic body in which Nigeria alone, among its membership, is obviously the domineering economic and political power.  As for Germany, it has not psychologically recovered fully from the negative effects of Hitler’s WWII adventurism, but would work in concert with the U. S., France and Britain to acknowledge its pleasure and gratitude for the re-unification of Germany after the communists took away its eastern portion from the end of  WWII until 1989/90.

  In terms of adaptation of democracy in Africa, Nigeria is making progress even if it is staggering.  Our neighbor, Cameroon, is by no means a democracy.  It is a civilian dictatorship.  Only two dictators have held sway since 1960, when it became independent  politically.  No basic human rights are recognized and enforced.  The English speaking south is not at par with the French speaking north.  Cameroon is politically uncivilized because it is a police state.  If Nigeria hands over Bakassi in sixty days according to the Kofi Annan – U. N. brokered agreement, the Efik population will suffer immeasurable abuses in the hands of the ruthless Cameroonian gendarmes, its military and its secret service agencies.  No dictatorship such as Cameroon possesses the essential democratic agencies and institutions to fulfill all the itemized details of how Nigerians in Bakassi should be treated after the handing-over.  The demands of the agreement constitute a façade which are not operated or observed  anywhere in the world. For how long are these special conditions supposed to last?

      In Nigeria, there seems to be no distinctive policy on the Bakassi peninsula. Our political leadership at the center has not developed the required capability and capacity to effectively employ subtle political rhetoric for its foreign policy objectives. This article does not advocate irresponsible radicalism in our foreign policy objectives and its delivery but it is noteworthy to say that Nigeria’s foreign policy behavior is too agreeable, too passive, too compliant, too docile and totally unsophisticated.  Nigeria is big and resourceful and all the necessary factors of building a respectable and durable national power both at the domestic and foreign fronts are available to her from human to material resources.  We do not need to look like Libya, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and other recalcitrant nations that challenge western powers at every turn, but by the same token we should not lose our national dignity and respect in the international community.
      There is also a noticeable conceptual problem with our political elite in relation to problems facing our nation, Nigeria, at the international level.  I should like to emphasize that no political leader or a cluster of them is intended to be insulted in this article.  Insulting our leaders is not one of the objectives here.  The main objective is to highlight some problem areas in our leaders’ conception of political issues in the foreign sphere and discuss them meaningfully.  There seems to be a problem of  COGNITION, that is inherent in the inadequate and faulty perception exhibited by our political leadership whenever relevant issues are at stake in Africa or in the rest of the world.  By COGNITION, we mean the mental process or faculty of knowing, identifying including aspects such as awareness, perception, reasoning, and judgment.  During the Angola political independence in 1975, Nigeria took a firm and honourable position in support of the dignity of the black African, the independence of Angola and gave unconditional support to the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola as the ruling party. This position was absolutely unacceptable to the West because the MPLA was seen as a communist political party and communism had to be contained by the United States and the rest of western European countries everywhere especially in Angola which by proximity was too close to South Africa; the apartheid enclave they wished to protect. The policy was successfully executed and success was ultimately achieved.  The so-called socialist oriented political party, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) which  Nigeria supported unilaterally is still running the government of Angola today and it has now become a friend of the United States which imports its crude oil.  This kind of understanding, intuition, vision and judgment are totally absent in the issue of Bakassi peninsula where Nigerians’ civil rights and liberties are at stake.
      One other serious problem with our governments in Nigeria from local to state and the federal government is their low level of competence and efficiency.  When political leadership is not competent in the manner it operates or how it solves social and political issues, it would lack efficiency.  A good example is the magnitude of incompetence and inability of most governments in Nigeria to adequately pay the pensions and gratuities of hordes of good Nigerians who have meritoriously served our nation until their retirement age.  Many of them suffer incalculable financial and psychological damages, over time, because they have no alternative source of income and consequently became physically sick and die prematurely.  How does one explain or rationalize that the federal government of Nigeria owed late Pa Imoudu some back pay pensions when he died in 2005?  Where is the efficiency?  The governmental competence and responsibility?  If all these values exist in running any branch or level of government in Nigeria, the Nigerian people who should benefit from them would appreciate their government efforts. But many of our leaders run governments as if it is their personal property. Many of us who wish to serve do not have the right notion about public service and leadership. Public office should not be personalized because it will become an abuse of the basic trust reposed in those who were sponsored and elected into office.  One retired Inspector of the Nigerian Police, Maisuri Kailani from Dalla Local Council in Kano State finally received his pay after waiting for five years.  The man shed tears of joy when he was finally paid his dues because he was lucky to survive the long waiting period and other environmental hardships for years.  Many of these old pensioners die from many causes which would have been prevented if they had enough money to take adequate care of themselves.  These old people often collapse and die on queues when required to appear physically to collect their pensions, which the galloping inflation of the Nigerian economy often renders valueless.
      Now that the issue of Bakassi is current, immediate and fresh, the Nigerian government is full of incentives and promises to resettle the affected population.  We need to wait and see the prospect of these commitments in twelve months.  Let us see what will happen to the so-called amount of six billion naira (N6 billion) earmarked for the resettlement scheme.  What will the federal and the Cross River State governments do about those who would lose their landed properties, their means of livelihood and the trauma of being displaced and relocated in a new environment?
      The reasons given by the federal government on why it agreed to withdraw from Bakassi in favour of Cameroon are not plausible.  The endorsement by Nigeria of the protocol that established the ICJ is no reason.  It should be dismissed because when ICJ was created in 1946, Nigeria was still a colony of Britain.  Those who formally created the United Nations with its tripartite arms, that is, the General Assembly, the Security Council, and the ICJ as its judicial arm did not give it  any  police  power to enforce its decisions.  When the ineffectual ICJ makes its decisions or renders its opinions, which often times, are at variance with the opinions of other U. N. member nations who hold their sovereignty jealously with regard to their national interests, they are often disregarded.  The U. N. member nations that have rejected ICJ opinions on several issues because they appear contrary to their sovereign interests are the United States, Israel, India, and a good number of the older U. N. members than Nigeria.  The recommendation of Oud Abdallah/Bola Ajibola’s  Mixed Commission was a  bait which we voluntarily allowed to lure us into the Kofi Annan/U.N. trap.  We went to the Mixed Commission to surrender our sovereign rights and initiatives and now we have to swallow the bitter pill.  About the intense pressure from the United Nations, Nigeria allowed that to occur.  It is a question of sovereign will and determination to pursue our resolve not to cede Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon with all our indigenous people, the Efiks, their business and trade, and more so, its economic substance; the huge petroleum resources which Cameroon will acquire at our expense.  Asking the U. N. to grant or extend our period of voluntary withdrawal from five years to twenty years is most unnecessary.  The U. N. will not do that because the verdict or opinion of the ICJ would need to be  altered.  The consequence of the Bakassi peninsula dispute on Nigeria’s part, emanates from our weak, passive, moribund and lackadaisical posture in international diplomacy. 
      The judges in The Hague are not intellectually competent to deal with issues which arise from pre-colonial and colonial situations in Africa.  The so-called Anglo-German Treaty of 1913 is an absurdity because the two European powers involved in the treaty were imperialists seeking political and economic dominance of other civilizations.  They settled and occupied areas considered conducive to their health, large settlement and economic adventurism in Africa.  The judicial system of the AU would have done a better job than the ICJ.  We are free of European colonialism today because of Hitler’s military aggression, which inadvertently resulted in self-determination for all Africa, which was effectively under the rule of European nations.  Since 1960, the Bakassi peninsula has been an integral landed portion of sovereign Nigeria.  Suddenly, we agree to cede it to Cameroon, a civilian dictatorship whose national economy needs some natural incentive and boost.  Evidently, the huge deposit of petroleum which the western powers are anxious to exploit is now available to Cameroon  to improve and consolidate its poor economy.  Aside from the huge loss of petroleum deposit available at Bakassi, Nigeria’s naval power will be operationally restricted on our continental shelf, even though our Attorney General and Minister of Justice has told us that Nigeria’s maritime zone is intact.  Let us wait a while and see what situation develops on the part of Cameroon, a state in which lawlessness, backwardness, primitivity, without the slightest recognition of democratic norms and basic human rights are rampant. 


Bankole A. Okuwa    Ph. D.
Professor of Political Science
University of AR at Pine Bluff
Arkansas
U.S.A.