Senate committee issues recommendation on border dispute

Nigeria’s Senate on Wednesday adopted a recommendation by its special committee that the government prepare the country’s armed forces for war over a border dispute with neighbouring Cameroon.

The recommendation by the senate committee on public petitions followed complaints by legislators representing the disputed Bakassi Peninsula, awarded to Cameroon on 10 October by the International Court of Justice. President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government rejected the ruling.

"While a diplomatic solution is being sought," the report said, "efforts should not only be made to strengthen our military presence in Bakassi, everything must be done to make Nigeria combat ready."

The senate also urged that funds be made available to the foreign ministry to evacuate Nigerians living in Cameroon, whom it estimated at four million, "in the unfortunate event of war".

Obasanjo said on Monday he would meet Cameroon's President Paul Biya in Geneva on Friday to seek a solution to the dispute over the oil-rich peninsula. The meeting, at the initiative of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, would be the first between the two leaders since the ICJ ruling.

Troops from both countries have clashed on occasion in the disputed frontier territory in the past decade. Tension has remained high in the area since the ICJ ruling ended an eight-year legal battle.