Senate President David Mark yesterday said Nigeria will initiate discussion with Cameroon on the ceding of Bakassi Peninsula.
Mark spoke with reporters at the 127th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) conference in Quebec , Canada .
The conference’s theme is “Citizenship, identity, linguistic and cultural diversity in a globalised world.”
The Senate President said the Nigerian delegation would engage their Cameroonian counterparts at the conference to iron out knotty issues so as to create a forum for broader dialogue on the Bakassi issue.
He said the discussion would focus on whether to revisit the International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision on Bakassi or to ensure that the rights of Nigerians who live in the oil-rich peninsula are fully protected.
The Senate President noted that the National Assembly recognised that there is a subsisting judicial decision on Bakassi.
He insisted that once there is a judicial decision on any matter, “you must be careful.”
The judicial decision hanging over Bakassi, he said, made it imperative for Nigerian delegation at the IPU to open dialogue with their Cameroonian counterparts at the conference on the future of Bakassi.
He said, “Bakassi is a different story entirely. For Bakassi, there is a judicial decision and once there is a judicial decision you must be careful.
Revisiting the judicial decision on Bakassi whether it will bring any more profit or whether we should ensure that Nigerians who are in Bakassi have their human rights fully protected and that they are not maltreated in any way by Cameroonians, is one of the issues we will sit down and discuss with Cameroonian parliamentarians who are here too.”
In his address at the conference, Mark told the Union of the need for parliaments world over to protect and guarantee minority interests.
He said, “The National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is not just in total support of raising the stakes in management of diversities in a globalised world, we are already taking steps to ensure that every minority interest within the Nigerian State is well protected.
“We are working to remove all obstacles that hinder unity and harmonious co-existence.”
Harping on the ongoing constitution review by the National Assembly, Mark said that cardinal among the issues on the constitution review agenda is to revisit some constitutional issues which seemed to contradict one another and the spirit of the constitution on the rights and privileges of Nigerians.
In particular, he said that the National Assembly will take another look at the issue of “state of origin” as against “state of residence.”
Some parts of the 1999 Constitution, such as Section 147(3), he said, makes it compulsory for certain political offices to be for indigenes (not residents) of the benefiting States.
Such discriminatory tendencies, Mark insisted, tend to ignite indigene-settler rows.
He said that Nigerians feel that the problem can be best addressed by replacing the “State of Origin “ provision with “State of Residence .”
He assured that the National Assembly would work to actualise the replacement of “State of Origin “ provision with “State of Residence “ to enhance the rights and privileges of every Nigeria in any part of the country, irrespective of his or her state of origin, language, ethnicity and religion.
Apart from institutionalising “State of Residence “ he said that the National Assembly is working to ensure that “our women and other minority interests are well secured by entrenching in the constitution provisions that advance their course.
Mark noted that more than ever before, humanity has come to understand, both by reason and compelling needs of interdependence, that though language, ethnicity, culture, race, religion, gender, political inclination and economic status may differ “it is in brotherhood that we can all make progress.”
He posited that proper management of citizenship, identity, linguistic and cultural diversities in a globalising world is an international challenge, but with local solutions.
For him, if every nation plays its role creditably in the management of diversities within their local environment but with global outlook enshrined in various international treaties, declarations and conventions, “we would have made an impressive progress towards this end.”
