Two Nigerian militant groups merge to disrupt Bakassi handover on August 14
Posted by African Press International on July 31, 2008
By Tansa Musa
YAOUNDE, July 30 – Two Nigerian militant groups opposed to the hand over of the formerly disputed Bakassi peninsula in the Gulf of Guinea have merged and united their forces in a last minute attempt to disrupt the completion of the process by Nigeria on August 14, according to an e-mail message sent to API in Yaounde on Thursday.
”The Niger Delta Defence and Security Council (NDDSC) has merged with the Bakassi Freedom Fighters (BFF) to make sure that there will be no handover on the 14 of August or else Bakassi will go ablaze,” said the message sent by NDDSC’s Commander Ebi Dari.
“We are going to create an unprecedented situation to cripple the economy of Cameroon here in Bakassi.”
The NDDSC has claimed responsibility for three raids on Cameroon military posts in the Bakassi since the beginning of the year that has resulted in the death of several Cameroonian soldiers and a civilian authority.
The message comes one week after Cameroon claimed to have killed 10 NDDSC militant fighters in the region and captured eight others, and only four days after Nigerian President Ulmaru Musa Yar’Adua said his country was committed the long disputed territory.
In a telephone interview with Reuters on Wednesday, Commander Dari said his forces will now fight under the emblem of the BFF whose Commander-in Chief is Brigadier Atikpee. They now have a fighting force of some 800 well-armed men, he said.
“We agreed to merge our forces with the BFF because they are a grassroots organisation made up of the indigenes of Bakassi while the NDDSC was a more elitist force.
“The prospect for total peace to reign in Bakassi is still very far off for as long as our view, that is the view of the indigenous people who have been living in the territory before the 1913 trade treaty between Britain and Germany which was the basis of the ICJ judgment of 2002, is not taken into account.”
According to the 2002 ICJ ruling which recognised Cameroon ownership of the peninsula and the subsequent Greentree Agreement of June 12, 2006, Nigerian forces are due to complete their pull-out from the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula on August 14.
”We must ensure that the August 14 handover goes ahead … and then we shall continue to work together to further strengthen our existing very cordial and brotherly relations,” Yar’Adua said in a statement on Friday.
Over 90 percent of the population in Bakassi are Nigerian fishermen and their families. Nigeria missed the first pull out deadline of September 2004 for unspecified “technical” reasons.
This probably explains why there is a lot of anxiety among the five witness states to the Greentree Agreement whose ambassadors in Yaounde have been knocking at the doors of the Ministry of External Relations over the past week to reaffirm their support for and solidarity with Cameroon.(END)
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API
