Reps seek review of ICJ judgment on Bakassi

by John Ameh 

Speaker, House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal

The House of Representatives on Wednesday asked the Federal Government to file a process for the review of the International Court of Justice judgment ceding the Bakassi Peninsula to the Republic of Cameroon.

In a resolution in Abuja, the House said the process should be initiated before October 10, ahead of the 10th anniversary of the judgment.

The Federal Government had in 2006, signed the Green Tree Agreement with Cameroon, formally ceding the territory to the latter in compliance with the ICJ judgment.

However, the agreement, an international treaty, was signed without the approval of the National Assembly.

Lawmakers, debating the matter on Wednesday, observed that the decision of the government was in breach of Section 12 of the 1999 Constitution, which required that such treaties must be ratified by the National Assembly to have the force of law in Nigeria.

In a motion by the member Representing Calabar-South/Bakassi Federal Constituency, Mr. Essien Ayi, he said his people would continue to oppose the judgment because government did not exhaust all the remedies before it proceeded to cede the territory.

Ayi argued that under Article 61 of the ICJ Statute, a judgment of the court could be reviewed whenever new facts emerged not known at the time the judgment was delivered.

According to him, a process for such a review is to be filed before the expiration of 10 years of the delivery of the judgment.

In the case of Bakassi, the expiration date is October 10, 2012.

The lawmaker stated that “one of these facts is that the 1913 Anglo-German treaty relied upon by the ICJ to cede Bakassi to Cameroon is in breach of Article 6 of the General Act of Berlin Conference that enjoined European powers ‘to watch out the preservation of the native tribes and not to take over or effect transfer of their territory.’”

Ayi, who noted that “gross injustice” was meted to the Bakassi people by both the Federal Government and the United Nations, cited three cases in history where countries applied for a review of the ICJ judgment.