Ambazonia, the former UN Trust Territory of the Southern Cameroons under the UK Administration, known as the Republic of Ambazonia, is the buffer state located between Nigeria and Cameroon in its South-South Eastern boundary.
The October 19, 2002, ICJ Bakassi ruling which went against Nigeria required that it returned the occupied Bakassi Island territories to the Republic of Cameroon.
In June 2006, there was the UN/ICJ arrangement called the Greentree Accord, which essentially imposed an illegal alteration of the 2002 ICJ-Bakassi decision upon Nigeria, and by that, caused Nigeria to be forced to participate in an issue it’s people are now calling fraud.
According to Edwin Ngang, the fraud is the handing over of the Bakassi territories to the Republic of Cameroon whose boundaries as validated by the Nigeria-Cameroon Mixed Boundary Mixed Commission does not extend to Bakassi.
Recall that the ICJ required Nigeria to hand back Bakassi to “The Republic of Cameroon”, but the facts of the law have it that Nigeria can hand back Bakassi only either, to the “Federal Republic of Cameroon” which was rendered extinct on February 4, 1984, by “Restoration Law 84/01”, or to its successor state called the “Republic of Ambazonia”.
Ngang said the Greentree Accord found a way around this problem of geographic constraints by exhuming the defunct “Federal Republic of Cameroon”.
The Missed Opportunities?
All these alterations of the 2002 ICJ Bakassi decision happened despite the “Annan Bakassi Peace Accord,” of January 2005: the product of “shuttle diplomacy” between Abuja and Yaoundé, producing this commitment from Paul Biya.
The then UN Secretary-General, Koffi Annan secured this written commitment from the Head of State of Cameroun that went as follows: “… I President Paul Biya of the Republic of Cameroon do hereby, in a bid to provide lasting peace to the Bakassi conflict, commit myself and my government to respect the territorial boundaries of my country as obtained at independence….”
Even though this opportunity to win prosperity for all peoples in this Gulf of Guinea subregion was missed when the Federal Government of Nigeria failed to stand its grounds to define and execute what the laws in the “principle of territoriality” really meant when President Biya was quoted to have said, “I commit myself and my government to respect the territorial boundaries of my country as obtained at independence”, there is always time for correction.
Pundits say it is the time for the most populous and powerful economy in the continent to carve its deserved destiny in this Gulf of Guinea subregion by taking the kinds of proactive actions, responsible visionarian sovereign states do to ensure “lasting peace” in their subregion adding that Nigeria should always be for the maximum implementation of the law.
Being the giant in Africa, it’s citizens are now insisting that the country should prove that it deserves a seat at the UN Security Council by taking the initiative to end the ongoing war within the eastern bordering country of Cameroon, at the same time, permanently solving the problem of Self-Determination faced by the indigenous English-speaking people of Cameroon, who call themselves today as Ambazonians.
“This should be how the FGN will signal to Africa and ultimately to the rest of the world that the “New Nigeria” has finally arrived! A New Nigeria that will get this job of justice done, this time around by proactively invoking The Rules Of The Law applicable to this Gulf of Guinea subregion,” a public affairs analyst, Vincent Bodom said.
Some 37 years ago, on March 20, 1995, the defunct news publication called “West African Magazine” published a seminal article captioned “No Win Without Ambazonia.”
This propel an argument which unfortunately was not successful at getting Nigeria to adopt the “constitutional based” arguments of the Republic of Ambazonia — the successor state of the now defunct Republic of Southern Cameroons.
According to Barr Chinedu Nwoko, in a publication in West Africa Magazine, March 26, 1995,
“Recognition of Ambazonia (the Republic of Ambazonia, since in 2017 arrived at the political scene the illegal entity called the Federal Republic of Ambazonia) would deprive Cameroon of any claim of the rights to sue Nigeria. Nigeria would then move the court under Article 79 of the ICJ rules to strike out the case because Cameroon has no locus standi.
“Recognition of the Republic of Ambazonia would prevent the exodus of millions of refugees fleeing such tragedy into Nigeria which would have a destabilizing effect on Nigerians.”
Today, interested parties have imitated the same idea of “No Win Without Ambazonia – 2.0.
The Sequel that was originally authored in West Africa Magazine Chinedu Nwoko, LLM (London) BL, Historian, Author, and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales, on the 62th anniversary Resolution 1608 (xv) GOAR to grant another opportunity for Peace through Justice to prevail in the subregion, this time around, with help from an Abuja’s New Nigeria as well as help from the New Social Media.
Nigerians are now saying that it is time for the World to know that 62 years ago, the UN passed Resolution 1608 (xv) GOAR on April 21, 1961, to confirm the results of the just concluded February 11, 1961, Plebiscite in the Southern Cameroons.
That this UN Resolution ratified the “confederal nature” of the winning second alternative at the plebiscite by calling on the two sovereign states (the Republic of Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroon) to “immediately implement” the confederation they had agreed and signed as the December 16, 1960, Plebiscite Treaty.
“The world needs to know how this functional application of Pan-Africanism, albeit ill-advised, was wrongly implemented,” said a public affairs analyst, Mustapha Saleh.
Whatever happened at the August 1961 Foumban Conference was pure and simple annexation in total contradiction to the Plebiscite Treaty which stated:
“A vote for attaining independence by joining the Republic of Cameroon would mean that, by an early date to be decided by the United Nations after consultation with the Government of the Southern Cameroons, the Cameroun Republic and the United Kingdom as Administering Authority. The Southern Cameroons and the Cameroun Republic would unite in a ‘Federal United Cameroun.”
The arrangements would be worked out after the plebiscite by a conference consisting of representative delegations of equal status from the Republic and the Southern Cameroons. The United Nations and the United Kingdom would also be associated with this conference.
During the short period while the arrangements for transfer were being made the United Kingdom would of course be ready to continue to fulfill its responsibilities under Trusteeship.
To this date, the mandates in its articles 3 and 5 calling on the Republic of Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroon to negotiate a federal constitution on the agreed eight matters hasn’t been met.
These, some pundits say, can be deduced that whatever happened on October 1, 1961, was pure and simple annexation, followed by reconciliation and subjugation.
Interestingly, hidden inside the Republic of Cameroon memorial at the ICJ Bakassi proceedings in 1994, was a confirmation that she too can’t win against Nigeria without referring to the jurisdiction which Truly owned Bakassi in 1960 before the Federal Republic of Cameroon inherited it on October 1, 1961.
This is how Cameroon’s convoluted arguments have only matured with time to support the fact that there can be no peaceful permanent solution without Ambazonia.
The argument is that the Cameroonian of the Bakassi Peninsula was confirmed by the result of the UN-sponsored plebiscite of February 11, 1961, by which former Western Cameroon under British mandate opted to be part of Cameroun.
By this statement, Cameron formally acknowledges that at her independence on January 1, 1960, Bakassi was not part of the territory of Cameron. In fact, the West Coast of La Republique du Cameron stops at the River Mongo 350 kilometers East of Bakassi. Cameron must herself be bound By the OAU declaration which Cameron has aptly cited in her paragraph 7, thus: “…solemnly declares that all member countries shall endeavor to respect the borders in existence at the time of their independence”…
By the said OAU Solemn Declaration, Cameroon has effectively conceded that she has no locus standi in any dispute on sovereignty over the Bakassi Peninsula and accordingly should have been struck out of the suit on the question of sovereignty over the Bakassi Peninsula had Nigeria recognized their Sovereignty in 1995.
Therefore, Nigeria will not be alone in unilaterally promoting the Peaceful Permanent Solution (PPS) because the principle of territoriality is the universal handle for unilateral intervention, as stated in AU article 4(b) and the UN Articles 1, 2 and 51.
Some of the publicly taken stand that highlights the Sovereignty Status of the Republic of Ambazonia are:
“The UN/ ICJ recognizes the Republic of Ambazonia by visually promoting the peaceful permanent solution via the Gift Of Two Maps.
On May 20, 2010, while working in his official capacity as the President of the UN General Assembly, Dr Ali Abdusallam Trekki attended the 50th anniversary of the independence of the Republic of Cameroon in Yaoundé.
There he presented the “Gift Of Maps, the product of the 2006 Greentree Accord mandated Nigeria mixed boundary Commission.
The maps represented the two sovereign states of the Republic of Southern Cameroons and the Republic of Cameroon at their separate times of independence of January 1, 1960, and October 1, 1960 respectively.
These two sovereign states went to create the ill-fated Cameroon Confederation of 1961 which was rendered extinct in 1984.
In the United Kingdom House of Lord, on October 14, 2028, Lord Boateng and Viscount Waverly of the UK House of Lords invoked the AU Article 4(b) “principle of territoriality” as the instrument to bring the Peaceful Permanent Solution (PPS) to the so-called Anglophone Problem of Cameroon.
“It is terrible and so sad that these wounds have resurfaced, but I fear it was always going to be thus with the exclusion of the English-speaking minority from the affairs of state. The only practical solution, from a distance, is a political settlement with either a United Nations or African Union peace-keeping contingent being placed on the ground to enable an immediate cessation of violence, ensuring a humanitarian protective intervention and a cooling-off period to create the conditions to allow an equitable settlement to be hammered out.
“Importantly, the 1964 Cairo declaration on African borders, reaffirmed in Article 4b of the Constitutive Act of the African Union and signed off by the President of Cameroun, makes it clear that demarcation of the territory of each African state is recognized as being such on the date of its independence. Does the United Kingdom Government accept this to be the case or not? Have there been subsequent declarations that nullify these issues on borders? If not, it would follow that French Cameroon and Ambazonia (Anglophone) are both able to assert territorial integrity. At no time before or after its independence from France was the Southern Cameroons part of that country known by its French name and style as La République du Cameroun,” a diplomat said.
At the London GUBA Awards July 14, 2018, former President John Jerry Rawlings said this about the Ambazonia.
“In Cameroon for instance; a twin nation of two former UN trust territories that had enjoyed a semblance of peace for 57 years since 1961 but is currently deteriorating rapidly into a place of a full-scale conflict. I will urge the UN and AU to look into Cameroon’s case because we cannot impose superficial solutions on the English-speaking half of the country. I will also urge France and President Macron to be seen as part of the solution to salvage the situation and restore justice and equity to that part of the country. Mankind has had enough of its bloodshed over natural resources which should rather benefit their lives”.
Invoking a sense of Nigerian Greatness starts with taking the lead to solving the lingering problem of bungled Self Determination by the indigenous English-speaking peoples of the Republic of Ambazonia.
This Republic of Ambazonia is the sovereign state that awaits Federal Republic of Nigeria’s recognition or at the least, promotion of the Ambaexit Exclusive Referendum just as was the case of Kosovo from Serbia with the help of Tony Blair.
Just as senator-elect, Ned Nwoko reminded the Nigerian Government of what happened in the past, added that it’s never too late to Defend Justice at the same time promote Peace and Prosperity for all peoples in a subregion, the World will yield as Nigeria takes control of matters in its sphere of influence.
It is time for Nigeria to stand in this Gulf of Guinea subregion, a noble task that has been facilitated by several legal, constitutional, empirical, and better still, contemporary precedents.
On February 28, 2017, a conference tittled “Conference On Insecurity In The Gulf Of Guinea,” which was held in Abuja by the Nigerian Civil Society concerned about the rising state of insecurity in the Gulf of Guinea GULF, discovered that the state of insecurity was caused by both the lingering Niger Delta problems and the new problems of the resettlement of the displaced Nigerian Bakassiand after the 2012 final handing over of the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon.
One of the conference’s resolutions adopted recommended that the Nigerian Government should invoke the principles of Utti Posedetis juris (principle of territoriality) to handle the unilaterally and intervene in the “Southern Cameroonian problems” to help the creation of the functional state of Republic of Ambazonia.
From January 28, 2017, Abuja recommendations confirmed the timely veracity of the Ned Nwoko statement of 1995 that says: “By recognizing Ambazonia Nigeria would be playing no greater role in ensuring Ambazonia’s rights to self-determination than India did in its vital role which included armed intervention in supporting Bangladesh’s rights to self-determination.”
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