The Southern Cameroons Government-in-exile (IG) welcomes the people of Bakassi drive toward self-determination, and considers it a politically correct imperative in the face of attempts by Africans in conspiracy with colonial and imperial masters to eternalise slavery in their God-given space on earth.

The Southern Cameroons IG and SOCADEF (Southern Cameroons Defense Forces) will in the coming days, weeks and months initiate contact with the self-determined people of Bakassi on any and all tangible means, including armed self-defence, to make sure the principle of self-determination be actualised in not only Bakassi but also in the entire Southern Cameroons that is currently under the illegal and brutal occupation of France masquerading as la Republique du Cameroun.

The Southern Cameroons IG, along with her peoples are neither cowed nor impressed with the blood signatures of France, Britain, Germany and the U.S. as witnesses to the sale of Africans by the black Annan, Obasanjo and Biya trio to the whiteman.

Below, the Research Bureau of the Southern Cameroons IG in this document titled "THE BAKASSI CASE AND GREENTREE DEAL: WHO WILL UNRAVEL THE SECRETS AND SCANDALS" has outlined some questions that the Obasanjo Administration should address.

We consider the Nigerian Press as our eternal partners in our quest for the truth and justice for all Africans in this century

Highest Regards,

Stephen Joseph
For the Department of Media & Communication (MedCom)
Southern Cameroons IG

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THE BAKASSI CASE AND GREENTREE DEAL: WHO WILL UNRAVEL THE SECRETS AND SCANDALS?

A closer look on how President Obasanjo has handled the Bakassi case reveals so many anomalies that one must wonder if in fact there isn’t some secret dealing going on in the dark between Obasanjo and the Republic of Cameroun, perhaps with pressure from former colonial powers.

Is the Greentree deal binding on the Federal Republic of Nigeria or is it Obasanjo’s personal deal with the conspiracy of colonial powers? A strong legal opinion and firm action by the Nigerian National Assembly is needed on this matter! Human right groups, Nigerian opposition parties, believers in justice and all those who cherish Africa’s freedom should work to unveil the secrets being hidden from daylight! Certainly, one person cannot be above Nigerian courts, the Nigerian National Assembly and the Nigerian People!

But going back to the suspicion that something scandalous is going on in the dark about this whole Bakassi case, why I do I say this?

(1) Nigeria’s suspicious “bad” preparation of the ICJ case.

(2) Obasanjo’s refusal to implement the Abuja High Court Ruling on the Southern Cameroons, which came before the ICJ ruling.

(3) Obasanjo’s refusal to avail Nigeria of the provisions ICJ Court Rules.

(4) Obasanjo’s evasion of the UN Security Council where a Southern Cameroons’ Interpleader had been accepted!

(5) Obasanjo’s violation of Nigeria’s own constitution.

(6) The alarming silence of the Nigerian National Assembly on these vital legal issues.

(7) The absence of the involvement of any African country or even of the African Union in the Greentree deal. In fact the witnesses are suspiciously those same colonial powers who have agreed among themselves to divide Africa into their zones of influences with the support of each other.

(8) Obasanjo’s refusal to wait for the Banjul ruling.
Let us now take each point and show you the scandals involved.

(1) Nigeria’s bad preparation of the ICJ case on Bakassi

The most shocking omission in Nigeria’s preparation of the ICJ case was its failure to avail itself of the strong evidence that had been presented by SCAPO, The Southern Cameroons People’s Organisation, in its case against the Federal Republic of Nigeria in what has become known as the Abuja High Court Case. In that case, evidence was tendered showing that The Southern Cameroons, in which all the treaties and maps show Bakassi to be located, has never legally belonged to The Republic of Cameroun. The fundamental issue in the Bakassi case was whether sovereignty over Bakassi belonged to Nigeria or to the Republic of Cameroun. Instead of simply challenging The Republic of Cameroun to prove its claimed titled over the Southern Cameroons in which Bakassi was recognized to lie, Nigeria made a strenuous and unfruitful argument to show that Bakassi was Nigerian territory. The whole case would have ended on the preliminaries if Nigeria simply asked the Republic of Cameroun to produce the Treaty by which its boundaries had been extended from what they were at its independence on 1 January 1960 (at which Southern Cameroons was still a UN Trust Territory) to now include the territory of the Southern Cameroons! Nigeria had these facts at its disposal from the SCAPO case of March 2002! Why were the facts not used?

(2) Obasanjo’s refusal to implement the Abuja High Court Ruling of March 2002 on the Southern Cameroons.

In the Abuja High Court Ruling of March 2002, the Federal High Court ordered “the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to take up the case of the self-determination of the Southern Cameroons at the International Court of Justice and at the United Nations and to pursue it diligently to its final conclusion”. In addition, the Court put an injunction on the Federal Republic of Nigeria not to treat the southern Cameroons as if it were a part of the Republic of Cameroun.

There are many implications in this case (a) The fact that the Abuja High Court Ruling came long before the ICJ ruling means that Nigeria had a very strong legal and political reason to stay the execution of the ICJ ruling until it had executed the Abuja High Court Ruling. When two rulings on essentially the same matter follow each other, they must be executed in the order in which they came, thus the Abuja High Court Ruling took priority over the ICJ Ruling! Executing the Abuja High Court Ruling would have changed the course of history altogether, because the issue of Bakassi is inextricably linked to that of demarcating the boundaries between the Republic of Cameroun and The Southern Cameroons. In the meanwhile, until that matter was resolved, Nigeria would remain in Bakassi, peacefully! But Obasanjo once more passed this golden opportunity to hurry to hand over Bakassi to a wrongful owner. (b) It cannot be said that Nigeria is proving itself to be law-abiding by executing the ICJ ruling. Charity begins at home! If it were a matter of being law-abiding, Nigeria would not scorn its own court rulings at home on the same matter to rush to execute the ruling of the ICJ which is mere colonial conspiracy and has strong implications for a future war of independence next door to Nigeria. (c) The fact that Nigerian Court rulings have put an injunction on the Nigerian Government not to treat Southern Cameroons as if it were a part of the Republic of Cameroun means that under Nigerian law, Southern Cameroons, in which Bakassi is located, is not recognized to be a part of The Republic of Cameroun. So why is Obasanjo violating all these rulings and advantages to knowingly hand over Bakassi to a country that does not have sovereignty over it? (d) The worst part of it is that given that the Republic of Cameroon does not have sovereignty over Bakassi, Obasanjo knows that he is giving the Bakassi people and their land into colonization and slavery; they will be stateless and subject to all kinds of brutality as Southern Cameroonians are! They cannot question the legality of The Republic of Cameroon’s rule in Bakassi: they will be met with arrests, torture and imprisonment! So how can Obasanjo, knowing the facts, at least as per the Abuja High Court ruling, give his own people into colonization?

(3) Obasanjo’s refusal to avail Nigeria of the provisions of ICJ Court Rules.

Writing in NigeriaWorld on 6/22/2006, Anthony Okonsun explains:

“Article 99 rules 1 to 5 of the ICJ rules of court of 1978 as amended in 2000 allow parties to apply for revision of the world court's final judgments.

While appeals literally are not allowed from the court's final decisions, the application and effect of the instrumentality of article 99 of the ICJ rules of court helps dissatisfied nation litigants rewrite or modify the final judgments of the court, the same way, only an appellate court could allow.

I humbly submit that country Nigeria has not availed herself of the opportunity offered by the article 99 lacuna in the world court's rules.

Articles 61 and 38 of the ICJ rules of court are incidentally invoked whenever article 99 is invoked. One of the maxims of international law which is an omnibus ground for invoking article 99 and all its incidentally related articles at the world court is "ex aequo et bono" meaning in justice and in fairness. What this maxim is saying is that for the purpose of justice and fairness the world court will allow a revision of its own final judgments….. Nigeria's decision to voluntarily relinquish ownership of the Bakassi peninsula has no precedent in the history of the world court's adjudicatory jurisdiction. In the celebrated case of Nicaragua V. United States, the USA had previously accepted the world court's compulsory jurisdiction upon its creation in 1946, but withdrew it's acceptance following the court's judgment in 1984 that called on the USA to cease and refrain from the unlawful use of force against the government of Nicaragua.” He continues: “The agreements entered by President Olusegun Obasanjo and his Camerounian counterpart has not been ratified by the national assembly.

The world court has not foreclosed Nigeria from applying for a revision of its decision on the Bakassi case, which said right to apply for a revision is provided for under article 99 rules 1 to 5 of the ICJ rules of court.

The security council of the UNO has not ordered the use of military force against Nigeria.

Nigeria has not been threatened with economic sanctions by any global body.

Now my question is why the undue haste and overzealousness by our President to cede away our territory?”

(4) Obasanjo’s evasion of the UN Security Council where a Southern Cameroon’s Interpleader had been accepted and was waiting.

Article 94 of the ICJ rules of court establishes the duty of all UN members to comply with decisions of the world court involving them. It would be recalled that fearing that Nigeria would not comply, The Republic of Cameroon had taken the Bakassi matter to the United Nations Security Council. At the ICJ, Southern Cameroons had introduced an Interpleader as a principal interested party in the case, but it was refused on the grounds that the Southern Cameroons is not a signatory to the treaty establishing the Court. The rules of the Security Council however allow for interpleaders. So when Nigeria was taken to the Security Council by The Republic of Cameroun, it provided a golden opportunity for the true facts of the case to be heard. This was also a golden opportunity for Nigeria, now fully versed with the facts, to allow the matter to go before the Security Council of the United Nations where the illegality of the Republic of Cameroun would be exposed. The Greentree deal was a deliberate attempt to evade the Security Council solution where the voice of the Southern Cameroons was finally going to be heard. It is absolutely clear that something dark and secret is going on behind the scenes.

(5) Obasanjo’s violation of the Nigerian constitution

In citing the instances of the violation of the Nigerian Constitution, Concerned Citizens for Bakassi on Tuesday June 20, 2006, wrote “We believe that… President Olusegun Obasanjo by the Greentree Accord with the Republic of Cameroun and the United Nations on June 12, 2006, continues to act illegally against section 12 of the 1999 Constitution which requires that the National Assembly has the sole authority to enact a treaty, agreement or accord with foreign countries into law before it becomes effective.”

(6) The alarming silence of the Nigerian National Assembly on these vital issues.

One would have expected that under these circumstances in which the President is ignoring Nigerian court rulings, the constitution, and virtually under some unseen compulsion to break every law and common sense to hand over the Bakassi land and people into colonization by the Republic of Cameroun, the Nigerian National Assembly would have asserted its authority as the legislature of the land and called the president to order. Where is the opposition? Where are the human right groups? Where are the enlightened Nigerians? What is happening? Has a general order been given from above for everyone to just let the Bakassi people and land go into slavery? Even if it is now recognized that Bakassi inevitably is Southern Cameroons’ territory, wouldn’t Nigeria still have the interest to maintain custody over it until such day has it can hand it legally to the rightful owners?

(7) Absence of the involvement of any African country or even of the African Union.

Another suspicious element about the Greentree deal is the fact that there was no African country, or even the African Union involved! The issue of Bakassi is fundamentally an issue of boundaries. By the African Union Constitutive Act, Article 4(b) and the Cairo Declaration of 1964, African countries accepted the principle that their territorial boundaries would remain as they were on their attainment of independence. Isn’t it clear that all issues on African boundaries should be decided within Africa, especially with the participation of the African Union and neighbouring countries? How can it be understood that it is just at a time when the voice of Africa is on the ascendancy and Africans are trying to take charge of their own problems that the Greentree Accord would be signed far away from Africa, without the involvement of the African Union and no country of the sub-region? And by who? By Obasanjo! And who are the witnesses? The former colonial powers that conspired in the first place to create the present dispute between the southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroon. Worst of all, the Greentree Deal is not being negotiated under a UN Resolution, but on the private initiative of Kofi Annan! White people have always agreed among themselves that Africa should be divided into zones of influence in which each European country would help the others to keep their exclusivity in their own zones. This is what is happening in the Bakassi case!

(8) Obasanjo’s refusal to wait for the Banjul ruling

It should also be noted that one other fact that is on Nigeria’s side, if it decided to stay the execution of the ICJ ruling, is the fact that the People of Southern Cameroons are in the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights with The Republic of Cameroon over the latter’s colonization of Southern Cameroons. The ruling is till being awaited. How then would a country like Nigeria, purporting to champion peace, security and understanding in Africa, hasten to do a handover when a critical judgment intricately interconnected with the Bakassi issue is being awaited?

You can judge for yourselves now what is going on! But something needs to be done fast, in the Nigerian National Assembly and through the courts to stop Mr. President in his secret deals!

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