CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

• Background of the Study

The dispute along the Nigeria-Cameroun border was a matter of historic proportions, especially along the Cross River to the Sea section wherein the Bakassi Peninsula (Ekpenyong, 1989) lies. The disputed Bakassi Peninsula is an area of some of mangrove swamp and half submerged islands mostly occupied by fishermen settlers (Anene, 1970). Remarkably, Bakassi Peninsula came under British protection on September 10, 1884. Following the Berlin West African Conference of 1885, Britain and Germany defined their territorial spheres of influence in Africa in November 15, 1893. When the two installments of amalgamation were proclaimed in Nigeria in 1906 and 1914, the Bakassi Peninsula was subsumed under the frontiers of Southern Cameroon. Then the London Treaty of March 11, 1913 established clear-cut regulations on navigation on the Cross River. The end of World War I brought Bakassi under British Cameroon. During the interwar years, the Franco British Declaration of July 10, 1919 on Bakassi and what came to be known as British-Cameroon were placed under British mandate and were administered conterminously with Nigeria. In 1946 following the end of World War II Britain divided Cameroon into Northern Cameroon and Southern Cameroon (Idumange, 2010). While Southern Cameroun fell under the British colony, the Northern Cameroun was administered by France. Upon gaining political independence by Nigeria and Cameroun as well as the discovery of oil and other natural resources in the Bakassi Peninsula, the border conflict between the two countries began to gather fresh momentum.

Successive Nigerian governments had made various efforts in settling the Bakassi question. Specifically, after the ‘Maroon Accord reached between the Heads of state, General Yakubu Gowon of Nigeria and Ahmadu Ahidjo of Cameroon in which Gowon allegedly gave out the territory to Cameroon, General Murtala Mohammed that took over from the Gowon military regime threatened that rather than accept the outrageous agreement, Nigeria would go to war if Cameroonians refused further negotiations (Babatola and Jadesola, 2012). On assumption of office as the military head of state after the bloody coup d’etat that led to the assassination of General Murtala in 1976, Obasanjo made significant efforts to re-open the border negotiations with the Cameroonian authorities with little or no achievement recorded (Babatola and Jadesola, 2012)

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