By Tokunbo Adedoja in Lagos and Amby Uneze in Calabar, 11.03.2004
The Bakassi Council of Chiefs has appealed to the Nigerian people to impress it on the United Nations (UN), the need to hold a refrendum in the disputed Bakassi Peninsula so that the people can decide their nationality rather than sold into slavery. Making the passionate appeal in Lagos, the paramount ruler of Bakassi, Etinyin Etim Okon Edet, and the Chairman of Bakassi Traditional Rulers Council, Etinyin Edet Effiong Edet Atare, said that a referendum will conclusively prove that the people are Nigerians and would prefer to so remain. Following a suit on Nigeria land and seaward boundaries Cameroon filed at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), The Hague, the UN backed court ruled, among others, that the Bakassi Peninsula belongs to Cameroon. Nigeria and Cameroon, at the instance of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, set up a Mixed Commission to implement the ICJ judgement. Bakassi has, however, presented a problem as an initial handover arrangement had to be aborted as a result of protests and litigation. But Etinyin Edet who read the address of the Bakassi monarchs said yesterday that although President Olusegun Obasanjo assured him that he was not going to handover Bakassi community to any nation or power, it has become necessary to also appeal to all Nigerians to prevail on the UN not to sell the Bakassi people into slavery. He noted that Bakassi territory, including its continental shelf, being about 3,250 square kilometers with a population of about 500,000 persons, is larger in land mass, greater in population and richer than many countries which are member nations of the UN and the African Union. According to him, "As I am talking to you, we have been displaced. We have been displaced psychologically. We have been displaced emotionally for two years now. Our high blood pressure is rising. We are not sleeping, we are employing all measures to ensure that we hold on to our land. Handing over Bakassi to Cameroon will not happen in my life time. What will I tell my children? That I was a Nigerian and at the latter part of my life, I became a Cameroonian? It will not happen. Not in my life time". The Bakassi Council of Chiefs also wrote a letter to all editorial board chairmen of newspapers and magazines in the country urging them to use their various media to let Nigerians know the implications of the ICJ verdict. The letter reads: "We the people of Bakassi come to you today with heavy hearts. Hearts filled with appreciation, concern, trepidation and expectation. Most importantly, hearts filled with determination and the Nigerian spirit. We come to you to show gratitude for the blood of your sons and daughters shed on our soil, that Nigeria may remain one. "We come to you because for 90 and 44 years, we shared one destiny, one history and one national culture. We swore to the same oaths of allegiance and pledged to preserve the unity of Nigeria, and to protect and defend her constitution. "We come to you frail and uncertain, as the labour of all our heroes past, now seem certain to be in vain, as we will soon be abandoned to abject penury by the same country whose unity and constitution we swore to protect and preserve. "We come to you at this final hour, still hoping that you, our fellow countrymen, no matter the price, legal or diplomatic, will not condemn the Bakassi people to a life of perpetual slavery, wanton exploitation of our human, natural resources, torture and certain death". He stated that "the total derision with which the collective feelings of the Bakassi people have been treated, both in the manner in which the legal proceedings at the ICJ were conducted, up to this very moment when our fate is being sealed without our consent, leaves us with no choice other than to come to you". Justifying the claim that the people of Bakassi are Nigerians, the paramount ruler said Bakassi Peninsula and its people are of Efik stock who inhabited the area since 1403AD. He added that the villages on the Peninsula were co-founded by both the Efik and the Efiat and with time, the Efik territory emerged with the Efiat submitting to the sovereignty of the Obong of Calabar. "We speak Efik and owe total allegiance to the ancient stool of the Obong of Calabar. We share the beliefs and traditions as the Efik. The famous Ekpe, Obon and Akata, form part of our cultural heritage. Indeed, the territory is Efik territory(of old Calabar)... "Our ancestral heritage is the essence of our belief. Our cultural heritage is our identity. Our land is our dignity. As citizens of the world, Bakassi people have sacred and indissolule attachment towards the area where they derived their birth and infant nature. We shall not move from our territory, nor surrender our sovereignty", he stated. Urging Nigerians not to allow the United Nations to violate the very principle for which it was set up, ie. to protect and preserve the dignity of the human being, the paramount ruler said that by the judgment of the International Court of Justice, the collective rights of the people of Bakassi to nationality and sovereignty, to participate in the cultural life of the community and to self-determination as guaranteed by the UN charter on human rights, have been trampled upon. He listed four options that could be considered as a way out of the present logjam. The options include the conduct of a plebiscite in Bakassi, that Nigeria and Cameroon maintain the status quo, that Bakassi should be run as a United Nations Trustee Territory, and that government of Cameroon, Nigeria and the people of Bakassi share resources in the Peninsula without interference with citizenship. Meanwhile the member representing Calabar South/Akpa-buyo Bakassi Federal Constituency in the National Assembly, Hon. Pastor Essien Ayi in a press statement made available to THISDAY in Calabar, said that there is no way he and his constituency would go to Cameroon because they are not indigene of Cameroon but Nigeria. "The people of my constituency whom I represent are distressed by the continued uncertainty about their fate in Bakassi. As Nigerians, they have continued to look over to the Federal Government of Nigeria to defend them. Till date, however, the Federal Government has not responded to the resolution passed by the House of Representatives on the 2nd of September, 2004. According to Ayi, "tension is building up in Bakassi and as a representative of the people, I cannot keep quiet and watch. I was elected to speak for them and I must speak. The legislator stated that as a member of the Constitution Review Committee of the National Assembly, he knew that there is no proposal from the Federal Government for the amendment of the constitution to excise Bakassi from the constitution.
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