by crossriverwatch admin
Nigeria has been described as a Country consistent irresistible large appetite for ceding its southern minorities territories without taking into consideration the feelings of the natives.
The former member, Cross River House of Assembly from Boki, and a chieftain of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in the State, Hon. Cletus Obun made this assertion at the occasion of the 2nd Year Anniversary celebration of the CrossRiverWatch at the Transcorp Metropolitan Hotel, Calabar on Wednesday, while commenting on the lecture presented by a renowned Professor of International Law and Jurisprudence, University of Lagos, Professor Akin Oyebode.
Hon. Obun explained that it is this uncontrolled and inconsiderate large appetite for ceding territories belonging to minorities especially of former Eastern Nigeria beginning from the 1961 United Nations Plebiscites to the gross exhibition of lack of tact and firmness in the Bakassi matter leading to the ICJ Judgment and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s hurried and treasonable signing of the Green Tree Agreement in 2006, the formal handing over of the territory in August, 2008 to Cameroon is what has emboldened that Franco-phone country to attempt to extend her expansionist ambition to the hinterlands as recently witnessed in Danare and other Boki communities.
He disclosed that it took the firm and resistant spirit of the communities of Boki involved and the intervention of the Senate Leader, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba’s summoning of the important stakeholders to the floor of the Senate to checkmate the planned demarcation that would have taken about 9.6km of Nigerian land at Boki and ceding of many communities from Etung, Obubra, Akamkpa and Akpabuyo Local Government Areas of Cross River State.
The APC chieftain disclosed that the Cameroonian communities sharing boundaries with Danare and other Boki villages under threat of being ceded to Cameroon have always and still recognized their boundary with Nigeria to be at the Bajare River and have never recognized or claimed land to the area being claimed by Cameroon, adding that before the 1913 Anglo-German Treaty, Boki people had lived in that land 600 years with known traditional boundaries.
Hon. Obun said that the lack of interest shown by the Nigerian Government in the 1961 plebiscites which gave away the Western Cameroon that was part of eastern Nigeria, the people of that area have started a liberation movement known as the Ambazonia Liberation movement seeking self government for its people, adding that the giving away of Bakassi by Nigeria at a platter of gold further reinforces the call for the United Nations to recognize the right s of the people of Ambazonia to self-determination and self-government.
The outspoken former legislator therefore reasoned that since Cameroon has a long history of being hostile to these people and Nigeria has consistently proved that it has no regards for the minority people of the south especially of former eastern region extraction, the only option left for the oppressed and dehumanized people from both hostile divide of Cameroon and Nigeria is to come together under a country to be known as the Republic of Ambazonia, and the global community should so recognize the people’s right to self-determination and self-government as expressed over the years by the people of South Sudan and few years back recognized as such.
follow us oon twitter @crossriverwatch
Leave feedback about this