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Chapter 3. Colonial Impact on the Bakassi Region
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71 Chapter 3 Colonial Impact on the Bakassi Region Bakassi in the Berlin Conference Coffee-Cup of 1884 The Germans, after outwitting the English, succeeded in creating what became known as the German Kamerun Protectorate, after the Berlin Conference of 1884 which stipulated on the arbitrary partitioning of Africa among the European Colonial nations. In 1905 the Germans carried out a series of geological research in all the German Protectorates of Africa (Tanganyika, South West Africa, Rwanda-Urundi, Togo and Kamerun). Various regions of the German Protectorate of Kamerun, as it was then spelt were identified as containing valuable minerals. The German geological research testified (Dr. Guillemain: 1905-1907) that there is marble in the Mungo, as well as huge deposits of petroleum and natural gas between Douala and Victoria (Limbe), right up to Bakassi and the Cross River Basin right up to Mamfe in the Bayang and Akwaya region. The geological research also confirmed the presence of precious minerals like gold, diamonds, bauxite, zinc, copper and others in different parts of Kamerun, especially in the Bamenda Highlands as far as the Banyo Mountains. The fishing camps of this region have very mobile, relocating at various periods in the course of history, due to the movements of the sea, the quick sand and the mangrove forests which have been vying unceasingly to establish their supremacy in the region. In 1913 the Anglo-German Treaty of (Fongot Kinni: 1988) established the boundary between German Kamerun and the British Protectorate of Nigeria at the estuary of Rio Del Rey, to the Cross River at the point named ‘Rapids’. Actually the naming of the River Rio Del Rey (River of the King) by the Portuguese explorers and Slave Merchants in the 15th century is in recognition of the sovereignty of the King which could either be the King of Isangele Kingdom, or of the OLD CALABAR KINGDOM, which stretched as far as the estuaries of the Ndian River and the Meme River in the Bamusso and Obenekang (Bekumu) region. 72 [34.236.152.203] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 04:39 GMT) 73 This treaty abrogated the treaty of the King of Old Calabar and Queen Victoria in 1884, thereby ceding the suzerainty of the Old Calabar to the new colonial masters, Britain and Germany. The implication was that the native residents of Effik, Ibibio and Oron of the Bakassi region were split between the two administering colonial powers. In 1913, the Anglo-German Agreements were signed regulating the boundaries between the British colonies of Southern and protectorate Northern Nigeria on the one hand; and the German Protectorate of Kamerun. These Agreements were on the delimitation of the colonial borders from Yola to the sea at Bakassi (see Map I.1.2). On March 11, 1913, the first of these agreements (Forlmu, 2005) signed in London, titled: “(1) the settlement of the frontier between Nigeria and the Kamerun from Yola to the sea, and (2), the regulation of navigation on the cross river”. On April 12, 1913, the second was signed at Obuokum by Hans Detzner and W. V. Nudent representing Germany and Britain respectively. It addressed the precise demarcation between Nigeria and Kamerun from Yola to the Cross River. 74 These Agreements concluded the process initiated in 1885 by Britain and Germany for the delimitation of the borders of the British colonies of Southern Nigeria and the British Protectorate of Northern Nigeria on the one hand and the German Protectorate of Kamerun on the other. For Bakassi peninsula in particular, the Germans were interested in Shrimps and an undertaking that Britain will not seek to expand eastward. The British on their part were interested in uninterrupted and secured sea-lane access to Calabar – a key trading post. Since the Germans already had the option of using Douala environs as a port, they conceded the “navigable portion” of the offshore border to Britain. In exchange, Britain conceded the Bakassi 75 proper to Germany. In other words, to get Germany’s co-operation not to threaten access to Calabar, Bakassi peninsula was conceded by Britain. This was quite long before the birth of General Gowon, who was going to become one of the most pro-active agent based system actors in the Bakassi arena. On January 1914, cartographic colonial nation-state of Nigeria was created by the amalgamation of the Lagos colony and Southern Oil Rivers Region with the Northern Protectorate ruled by the Emirs (Fongot Kinni, 1988), under the Indirect Rule system instituted...