Daily Independent Online.
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Thursday, August 05, 2004.
Nigerian troops pull out of Bakassi
By Bassey Inyang
Correspondent, Calabar
Nigeria has begun
pulling out its soldiers from the Bakassi peninsula in order to beat the
September 15 deadline for the handover of the territory to Cameroun.
It began last week and
has continued gradually.
The development has
caused apprehension among the 150,000 inhabitants of the settlement who feel
that the Nigerian Government has
abandoned them to their fate.
Bakassi Council
Chairman Ani Esin, who confirmed the withdrawal, hurriedly held a meeting with
the people where he assured them that Abuja will not abandon them.
The Bakassi
legislative council has sent a memo to the National Assembly over the latest
development.
Council leader Godwin
Effiom and other prominent persons in the area declared that the people will
resist any attempt to cede them to Cameroun and make them “refugees in
their land”.
Aside the pull out of
soldiers, some residents have started relocating from the area for fear of the
unknown, even with the assurance by Esin that the federal authorities will
stand by them and that there is nothing to fear.
Esin said Bakassi is
their ancestral homeland, stressing that the people will continue to remain in
the place in line with the desire of the Nigerian Government.
A couple of weeks ago,
Defence Minister Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso
announced that Nigeria will withdraw its troops from the territory as
one of the ways of complying with the judgement of the International Court of
Justice (ICJ) delivered on October 10, 2002.
The two countries,
through the Nigeria/Cameroon Mixed Commission, have been working to ensure that
the judgement is implemented without the neighbouring countries taking up arms
against each other.
President Olusegun Obasanjo has assured the people that they
will not be left to their fate.
