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B N W: Biafra Nigeria World News |
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Nigeria, Cameroun may dump hand-over for integration
INDICATIONS have emerged that Nigeria and Cameroun might seek other options instead of a direct hand-over of the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula.
The chairman of the House ad-hoc Committee on the judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Wunmi Bewaji, disclosed this yesterday at a news conference in Abuja.
The House of Representatives on September 2, 2004 raised the Committee to study the judgment and report back to the House.
The committee submitted an interim report last Tuesday at an executive session.
Due to the dicey nature of the issue, coupled with the fact that September 15, 2004 had been fixed for the hand-over of Bakassi to Cameroun by the mixed commission, the House advised that its leadership and the committee should liaise with President Olusegun Obasanjo.
But at the press conference yesterday, Bewaji said the issues used as the basis for the judgment were "mere colonial lines drawn by people who never visited the area".
He gave the indication that other options rather than ceding of Bakassi to Cameroun might be explored when he said: "We should be talking of integration and not division now."
He further said efforts of both President Olusegun Obasanjo and his Cameroun counterpart, Paul Biya should be allowed to succeed.
The committee also cautioned against inflammatory comments about the issue, pledging to work with other agencies to ensure lasting peace.
The member representing Bakassi in the House, Essien Ayi, had moved a motion praying the House to urge the Federal Government to put off the hand-over and instead conduct a United Nations supervised plebiscite for the people of Bakassi to determine their rights to belong to a particularly country.
The indigenes had threatened to die rather than become Camerounians overnight.
According to the head of the commission overseeing the transfer, the hand-over of Bakassi is unlikely to take place for at least another month.
Ahmedou Quld Abaddah, the United Nations Special Representative for West Africa, said both countries had their own pressing political agendas and the hand-over was now unlikely to happen before presidential elections in Cameroun on October 11.
"The Nigerians are very busy with the Darfur talks and Cameroun has its political elections," Quld-Abdallah told Reuters in a telephone interview.
But he said the talks over the Peninsula had not been broken.
He said: "The talks have not been interrupted between the two countries and with myself. I speak to them on a daily basis but they are very busy.`
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