Snapshots: An X-ray of Cameroon�s Democracy, Governance and Unification

72. Bakassi and the Principle of Derivation

295 72 Bakassi and the Principle of Derivation Friday, 08 August 2008 There is a prevalent and somewhat misleading notion that the legal and diplomatic resolution of the Cameroon-Nigeria conflict over the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula would guarantee a durable peace and stability in the area. Far from it. The recent successful Cameroon military exploit that neutralised an armed insurgency in Bakassi by a Nigerian rebel group opposed to the August 14 official handing over of the Peninsula to Cameroon in accordance with the 2002 ruling of the International Court of Justice at The Hague and the Green Tree Accord of 2006, was highly commendable. It was a good move, but not enough to ensure durable peace and development of the region. The very fact that the so-called Delta Defence and Security Council embarked on armed insurgency in the area only in November 2007 in which more than 20 Cameroon soldiers were killed and irrespective of reports, confirmed in parliament by the Minister of Defence, of illegal arms deals between some elements of the Cameroon army and Nigerian rebels, the details of which have yet to be made public, the Nigerian rebel belligerency is an indication that there is more to the Bakassi problem than meets the eye. By undermining the Nigerian and Cameroonian governments, the insurgents have inadvertently sent a signal to Yaounde that intergovernmental solutions which royally snub the genuine aspirations and welfare of the people affected by such solutions are destined to fail. The Bakassi problem is a mild symptom of the broader Southern Cameroon’s question, which cannot be merely swept under the 296 carpet by legal and diplomatic expediency but must be resolved by an honest, profound and comprehensive political settlement that should seriously take into account, the historical, cultural and socio-political parameters that have been deliberately ignored by the Cameroonian political class. The imponderable factor in the Nigerian rebel action in Bakassi is the question as to why a dissident group that is opposed to a territorial settlement with a foreign (neighbouring) country should embark on a guerrilla warfare with that neighbouring country, instead of attacking its home government which entered the agreement in the first place. If, truly, the contention of the Delta group is the handover of the Peninsula to La République du Cameroun, one would, therefore, expect the rebels to take their own government to task instead of provoking a situation pregnant with international repercussions that could compromise efforts to restore a durable peace. It would be reasonable to assume that insurgents of the Delta Defence and Security Council are bona fide inhabitants of Bakassi who are vehemently opposed to the idea of being governed by La République du Cameroun. They are truly scared of what they perceive as the brutality of Cameroon gendarmes and their extortionist proclivity. These fears have been compounded by the fact that the people of Ndian Division in which Bakassi is located have been left to their own devices since the unification of the British Southern Cameroons and the French-administered Cameroon in 1961. And even after the area began producing oil in the mid-1970s, Bakassi remains the most backward enclave of the nation where the only reward, like the rest of the Southern Cameroons, the rightful owners of the Peninsula, has been the relegation to the status of second-class citizens. During the early months of the Bakassi border conflict which erupted in late 1993, Nigeria’s Nobel laureate for Literature Wole Soyinka suggested the holding of a plebiscite in the area as a means to determine the political aspirations of the inhabitants of Bakassi. 297 Soyinka stopped short of recommending the same solution for the entire Southern Cameroons which at the time was at the early stages of nationalist revival, encapsulated by the emergence of the All Anglophone Conference now known as the Southern Cameroons National Council, SCNC. It is worthwhile recalling that during the February 11, 1961 plebiscite in which the Southern Cameroons voted to join La République du Cameroun in a federation of two states with equal status, what is now known as the Ndian Division (Kumba Southwest) cast a vote of 2,424 to remain as part of Nigeria as, against 2,227 in favour of joining French Cameroon. Their deep-seated suspicion and distrust of the Francophone style of governance was, and remains unmitigated by irredentist colonial sentiments. The feelings of...