Mixed Commission delays visit to Bakassi Peninsula

A visit to the disputed Bakassi Peninsula by the Cameroon-Nigeria Mixed Commission, which is implementing the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on a border dispute between both countries, has been delayed at the request of Nigeria, officials said. This first ever visit to the potentially oil-rich peninsula by officials of the two countries was supposed to have taken place this weekend following a two-day meeting of the commission in Abuja. However, Nigeria proposed on Thursday that the working calendar of the commission be revised to accommodate some unspecified demands. The visit has been rescheduled for March amidst rising concern that a solution to the stand-off will not be straightforward. “Nigeria appears to be seeking a bilateral negotiation on the fate of the peninsula short of a complete handover of Bakassi,” a diplomat close to the proceedings, told IRIN. “Dealing with the peninsula will certainly be a difficult process for the commission,” he added. However, Nigerian representatives at the meeting played down suggestions the delay meant Abuja was reluctant to give up the peninsula in accordance with the ICJ ruling of 10 October 2002. Bakassi has a mainly Nigerian population, estimated at 200,000 to 300,000 people. Foreign Minister Olu Adeniji told the Mixed Commission this week that Nigeria accepted the ICJ ruling, but wanted its implementation to be given “a human face for the sake of the concerns and well-being of the border communities”. In the meantime members of the Mixed Commission will pay visits to already demarcated areas of the northern land border to observe how the affected people there are faring. In December Nigeria returned 33 villages near the shores of Lake Chad to Cameroon and received one Cameroonian village in exchange. A special sub-committee of the Mixed Commission has been set up to consider the maritime boundary between Nigeria and Cameroon. This will comprise UN experts and representatives from both countries. They will undertake a preliminary study of the offshore waters which are widely regarded as containing new oilfields. The Bakassi Peninsula has always been regarded as a big prize by both countries because of its potential oil reserves. In 1981 Nigeria and Cameroon nearly came to war over the low lying swampy territory. In awarding the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon, the ICJ relied on a 1913 treaty under which Britain, Nigeria's former colonial ruler, ceded it to Germany, the then colonial power in Cameroon. Nigeria maintained that in pre-colonial times the peninsula formed part of the kingdom of Calabar in Nigeria. Today, its estimated 200,000 and 300,000 population is mainly Nigerian. Angered at the ICJ's ruling in favour of Cameroon, the residents of Bakassi have staged protests and threatened to seceed unless it remains part of Nigeria.