Nigeria Complied, but Dissatisfied: A Reappraisal of the Verdict between Nigeria and Cameroun over Bakassi-Peninsula

Abstract

Boundary disputes affect nation building process in Africa. The Nigeria and Cameroun dispute over Bakassi (Backassey) Peninsula ownership is one of such disputes. On the 10th of October 2002, the International Court of Justice, which was handling the case, ruled in favour of Cameroon. Though Nigeria complied, it expresses dissatisfaction of the verdict. Adopting the qualitative and historical descriptive methods of analysis, the work contends that France's Defence Pact with Cameroon by encouraging Cameroons to enter into a federal relationship with "la Republique de Cameroon would make France bias owing to the influence it could have on the court because France had the deputy registrar, and a judge in the court that ruled the case. This alone, in the view of Nigeria discredited the credibility of the court's ruling. An isolated argument of the paper is that, the case be reopened to admit the presenetd but ignored valid six colonial/post-colonial treaties by Nigeria, or conduct referendum to acomodate the position of the displaced indigenes. This is in view to serve justice in order to douse the mutual suspicious distrust and outright alienation and built a better harmonious cooperation between the two African Union and ECOWAS member countries.