Some indigenes of Bakassi, Cross River State, have asked a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja to void the Green Tree Agreement that Nigeria signed with Cameroun in 2006.
The agreement followed the ceding of the oil rich peninsula to Cameroun by the International Court of Justice, Hague, Switzerland in 2002.
In a motion ex parte moved by their counsel, Mr Festus A. Ogwuche, the applicants are seeking an order of mandamus that compelling the Federal Government to, by any means available to it, repossess, occupy and take full legal and administrative control of the Bakassi Peninsula.
The motion was filed pursuant to Section 1 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Enforcement and Ratification Act Cap 10, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 1990, as well as Order 34 Rules 1(a), 3(1) and (2) of the Federal High Court Civil Procedure Rules, 2007.
The suit was endorsed by nine executives of Free Bakassi Association, Prince Imoh Ukpa Imoh, Mr Godwin Ukpong, Mr Chritian A. Umoh, Mr Anthony Achibong Ukong, Mr Kingsley Edu, Mr Etim Ekpeyong Ndong, Mr Offiong Anying Ekpeyong, Bassey Okon Osua and Bassey Ikoedem Antiga.
The Applicants are seeking the leave for an order of mandamus, compelling the Federal Government, President Goodluck Jonathan and the Attorney General of the Federation, who were all joined as respondents in the suit, to “unilaterally resile from, withdraw, rescind, repudiate and/or revoke Nigeria’s obligations under the Green Tree Agreement entered into between Nigeria and Cameroun in Green Tree, New York, USA on the 12th day of June, 2006, for its being invalid and in breach of Articles 1, 2, 20, 21, 22 and 24 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, Article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Article 1(2) of the UN Charter, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of indigenous peoples, and being inconsistent with sections 1-3, 2(1) and (6), 13, 14(1) and (2)(b), 17(1), (2)(b), (c ) and (d), sections 19(a) and 9d0, 21(a) of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).”
The applicants argued that the ICJ gave its judgment on the protracted dispute over ownership of the oil rich Bakassi Peninsula on the basis of “archaic and anachronistic colonial declarations, and communications between colonial officers.”
Justice Gabriel Kolawole yesterday deferred ruling on the motion till October 9, saying he needed time to carefully peruse the court processes in view of “weighty national issues raised therein.”
Specifically, the applicants argued that the ICJ, “in reaching its decision, relied on: (a) Henderson-Flerichau Exchange of Notes of 1931, (b) The Anglo-German Agreement of 11th March and 12th April, 1913 and (c) The British Order-in-Council of 2 August, 1946.
“The ICJ gave the decision as though the territory is occupied by wild animals without any rights under municipal or international law, and treated the colonial declaration and communication as conferring absolute proprietary rights and obligations to the territory to persons or entities outside the people who for centuries lived and existed therein and of which the territory is their homeland.
“The treaty, signed years before Nigeria came into existence as a sovereign entity, was a “Treaty of protection” conferring limited “protectionist” rights on Britain and cannot by any shade of imagination translate to sovereignty or absolute power of transfer of title, sufficient to extinguish the rights of the kings and chiefs to the traditional over lordship of the territory and/or give Britain an absolute right to alienate their rights and interests unilaterally without the free prior consent and authority of the chiefs and kings.
“The respondents are hereby given notice to produce the said treaty of 10th September 1884 which the applicants put in their possession upon the proceedings in the ICJ.”
The applicants are contending that they were neither consulted nor was their consent sought before former President Olusegun Obasanjo endorsed the Green Tree Agreement, saying they were totally kept out of the picture of things prior, during and even after the execution of the agreement.
“The applicants only got notice of the Agreement via media reports and grapevine, and upon contact with their representatives in the state and national assemblies, were told that nobody was either consulted nor was aware of such agreement.
” Before the applicants could realise what is happening, they were told that for them to remain as Nigerians, they are required to vacate their ancestral home and move into settlements to be built, constructed and maintained by the respondents, or else, if they opt to remain in their fatherland, they should be prepared to remain as Camerounians.
“The applicants are scattered in different parts of the country, as in Delta State, Bayelsa, Rivers State, Akwa Ibom, etc, living under the basest form of human degradation embodying all the pains and sufferings that could be experienced by man, existing in makeshift pre-civilization abodes, having only trees as cover against rain and shine, and other vagaries of the weather, which are most times inclement.
“The members of the applicant community are dying in their numbers every day from afflictions of disease, poverty, malnutrition, squalor, etc, and there is no end to their suffering, humiliation, degradation of their human essence and homelessness.
“The Camerounians changed the names of their communities and altered every existing tradition structure or monument which they could not destroy to suit their whims and purposes and destroyed and obliterated the very essence of their origins.
“The applicants do not have direct access to the ICJ, as by virtue of the statute of the ICJ, only states are recognizable parties before it, and have employed all existing measures to prevail upon the respondents to go back to the ICJ and undo the havoc they have caused in their lives, all to no avail.
“The applicants’ dehumanization is worse than animals, more humiliating than slavery, and degrading to the basest form of inhumanity, and is unpalatable and unacceptable in a 21st Century world.
“The applicants are under the direct traditional authority and suzerainty of the Obong of Calabar and are forever subjects to the Royal Office and paraphernalia of the Obong’s stool, which is also their cultural and spiritual guardian and guidance; the applicants cannot in any way be extricated from their historical cultural roots which are tied inextricably to their kiths and kin in Cross River State, Nigeria.
“Furthermore, the applicants cannot have their land in one country and be citizens of another country, and the respondents cannot impose their nationality on them as their right to a nationality is guaranteed under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“By the failure of the ICJ judgment to conform to this basic principle of justice, renders it null and void, and thus, the ceding of the applicants homeland to Cameroun is anchored on nothing and is bound for the ground.
“Under international law, the 1st -3rd respondents do not have any obligation to obey the ICJ judgment, and is not bound by the Green Tree Agreement to take the territory belonging to the applicants to the Republic of Cameroun without their free, prior and informed consent, hence the need for the 1st -3rd applicants to quickly return to the Hague to untie what they have intricably and unlawfully knotted.”
