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What is this so called African Union doing? I taught they are meant to defend the interest of Africans? - Cicero

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If Bakassi Were a Yoruba Territory Written by Phil Tam-Al Alalibo - Thursday, 17 August 2006

The official handover of the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon on Monday, August 14, 2006 in a solemn ceremony in Archipong observed by French, UN and American officials will go into the annals of history as the saddest day in the political history of Nigeria. It marks the ardent betrayal of a people, the climax of institutional neglect and prime dereliction of duty on the part of the federal government, a staid case of a failed polity basking aplenty in moral delinquency and omission. No country in recent history has parted with a piece of territory that rightly belongs to it no matter the aspersions or the weight of legal judgment against it and no matter the source of such judgment. An even sadder occasion is the fact that the land in question is filled with barrels of fine oil ranging in the billions. Here is a country reeked with a visionless leadership, a country where the leaders only have ephemeral posture.

The bigger question is; why was Bakassi ceded to Cameroon when it was clear that it belonged to Nigeria? And is Obasanjo truly a law-abiding citizen to obey the orders of the International Court of Justice? There appears to be more to it than meets the eyes and given the antecedent, we must view this action from the larger context and prism of ethnicity. In this politically charged polity with its ingrained ethnic sensibilities, the fact of the matter is; if the oil rich peninsula had been in Ogun, Ondo, Lagos, Ekiti, Oyo or Osun, even Kwara, (parts of it, at least), the Obasanjo administration would not have been so apt, so keen, so eager to part with the territory. It would not have been so disposed to watch its kith and kin become appendages to another country.

Here is a perfect example; for years, the Benin Republic has laid claim to some villages in Ogun State, the home state of the president. But of course, such claims have been dismissed wantonly and no one in this administration has heeded them. It is very doubtful that if Benin Republic goes to court and the verdict is against Nigeria, that the Obasanjo administration will, in the same manner as it has in the Bakassi case, cede those territories to Benin Republic. And if Benin Republic decides to engage in a needless rumpus, it risks being annexed by Nigeria. The handover becomes an even intriguing point when one knows that the Gen. Muhammed regime in which Obasanjo was second-in-command intended to go to war in 1975 over Bakassi as it believed then that it belonged to Nigeria. Obasanjo was part of that regime and was also part of the decision as a ranking member of the Supreme Military Council to go to war over the territory; what has changed?

Bakassi, as it is, has no indigenes of note, no towering political gladiators that can argue its case before the federal government. It has no Babangidas of Niger State, no Danjumas of Taraba State, no Nwobodos, no Nzeribes, no Ikembas, no Owelles, no Sultans, no power-welding emirs, just ordinary citizens with no sway or efficacy to change the course of affairs, the slated fate and assigned destiny of the territory. Senator Florence Ita-Giwa turned presidential adviser and widow of slain Newswatch journalist, Dele Giwa, being the lone voice from Bakassi can only watch as she and her kith and kin are remapped to Cameroon in a wicked twist of fate. The few leaders from the territory have been marginalized, intimidated or eliminated. Only today, the leader of the new movement for the independence of Bakassi, forty-year old Chief Tony Ene Asuquo, was killed in a mysterious car accident that claimed 21 other lives and another arrested and detained without charge(s) on the orders of the Cross River State governor, Donald Duke.

If Bakassi were Yoruba territory, the Obas, the Olus, the Alafins, the Baales and all the chiefs and royals would have converged on Aso Rock on its behalf. They would speak Yoruba with the president, confer frivolous chieftaincy titles on him, crown him the "Alafin of Bakassi", offer him a couple of young damsels from the territory as wives (an enticing prospect given his "bachelor's" status), bow profusely before him risking the fragility of their spines and at the end the international court verdict will be consigned to the dustbin of history during a lush and exuberant owambe party as Cameroon and the international community will be dared. Regrettably, this is the state of affairs in the polity, the politics of nepotism. It's a zero-sum endeavor, survival of the fittest treaties. In the last few days, in spite of pleads from all and sundry for the federal government not to obey the verdict of the international court, the handover did take place. This is consistent with Obasanjo's administration long-standing disregard for the minorities in the land. It brings to fore its revulsion and loathing of the minorities as evidenced in the abuse of the Niger Delta.

On November 22, 1999, just six months after assuming office, Obasanjo sent troops to Odi in Bayelsa to effect death, rape and destruction of innocent civilians in the name of restoring law and order. A few years ago, the same feat was accomplished in Benue in a rage that occasioned the death of Lt.-Gen. Victor Malu's uncle and the destruction of the home of the former army chief. Since 2003, the same administration has watched with glee as chaos, blackmail, thuggery and mayhem attended the political scene in Anambra. Rather than issuing an executive order to return the state to a state of peace, Obasanjo and his co-travelers watched from a safe distance in Abuja as a sitting governor was kidnapped, threatened and blackmailed to no end. Bakassi may have been lost, but Obasanjo's ill legacy will not be lost for generations and generations to come.

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