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Topic: BiafraNigeria, Cameroon To Set New Bakassi Pullout Date

Nchamere Nd'Igbo
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Advocate # 478

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BAKASSI PULLOUT DATE TO BE SET

quote:
Nigeria, Cameroon to set new Bakassi pullout date
11 May 2005 14:38:39 GMT

Source: Reuters

GENEVA, May 11 (Reuters) - Nigeria and Cameroon agreed on Wednesday to negotiate a new date for Nigerian troops to withdraw from the disputed Bakassi peninsula, awarded to Cameroon by an international court. After five hours of talks in Geneva with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and President Paul Biya of Cameroon announced a fresh deadline for the pullout would be set "as soon as possible".

Nigeria was due to hand over the peninsula, which is thought to hold significant oil reserves, last September in line with a ruling by the International Court of Justice that it belonged to Cameroon.

Some Bakassi leaders and Nigerian lawmakers have objected to the handover, saying the peninsula is home to 300,000 people who do not want to become Cameroonians.

Nigeria, which still maintains a strong military presence in Bakassi, cited "technical difficulties" for its failure to withdraw its forces in September.

As part of efforts to reduce tensions between the two neighbours, who nearly went to war over the peninsula in 1981, a U.N.-led joint commission has also been trying fix their 1,600-km (1,000-mile) frontier between Lake Chad and Bakassi.

The two presidents "noted the advances made ... (and) agreed to continue with the process of delimitation of the maritime boundary," Annan, Obasanjo and Biya said in a statement.

Most of the peninsula consists of wetlands rich in fish. Its offshore waters in the Gulf of Guinea contains several oilfields, with possibly more to be discovered.

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Posts: 31 | From: Limbo | Registered: Oct 2003 | IP: Logged

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