The House of Representatives Committee on Treaties and Protocols, headed by Mr. Nicholas Ossai (PDP-DELTA), has called for the rejection of the ceding of the Bakassi area of Cross River State to Cameroon.
The Committee described the decision by United Nations Green Tree Agreement, as illegal and in breach of section 12 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
Mr. Ossai said this in an exclusive mobile phone interview with Vanguard in Abuja.
He stressed that the whole negotiation process did not get the approval of the National Assembly and also argued that the house will revisit the treaty agreement.
Citing Section 12 of the 1999 Constitution, the lawmaker posited that the constitution had made provisions for the correct procedure for such treaties. The section states: (1) that “treaty between the Federation and any other country shall have the force of law except to the extent to which any such treaty has been enacted into law by the National Assembly.”
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According to the lawmaker, the Treaty ceding Bakassi to Cameroon, did not, however, meet that Constitutional requirement, when it was signed in 2006.
Recall that earlier this year, during the APC presidential campaigns in Calabar, the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Adams Oshiomhole, had said that history will punish former President Olusegun Obasanjo for ceding Bakassi to Cameroon.
Oshiomhole said the people of Cross River State should “never forget Obasanjo because he handed over Nigeria to Cameroon because he wanted to win the Nobel Peace Prize. “Nigeria can never forgive him. History will punish him if we are too weak to punish him. “He separated fathers from mothers, brothers from sisters, the Nobel Peace Prize is not given to traitors.”
On June 13, 2006, President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Paul Biya of Cameroon, resolved the dispute in talks led by the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan (late) in New York City to cede Bakassi to the Central African country.
Nigeria, finally let go the territory in 2008 under President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s government, leading to marathon protests from Nigerians indigenous to the area.
Source: Vanguard
