Daniel Donor And Cosmas Ekpunobi
30 November 2007
Abuja — Ranking senators yesterday denied claims by former president Olusegun Obasanjo that he got approval of the National Assembly to cede oil rich Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon in August 2006.
Meanwhile, international jurist Prince Bola Ajibola has faulted Senate's rejection of the hand-over, saying the ruling of the International Court of Justice on the matter was superior to the Nigerian constitution.
Obasanjo had in a reaction to the Senate decision rejecting the transfer of Bakassi to Cameroon insisted that both former Senate President Ken Nnamani and Speaker House of Representatives Aminu Masari were duly served with the green tree agreement between Nigeria and Cameroon on the transfer of Bakassi. Nnamani has since denied the letter.
But ranking senators who were in the last Senate in their reaction yesterday dismissed Obasanjo's claim as lie, insisting that the ceding of Bakassi to Cameroon by the former president was unconstitutional.
Sponsor of the motion and senator representing Bakassi in the National Assembly Bassey Ewa-Henshaw said that at no time in the history of last Senate was any of such letter discussed on the floor.
Ewa Henshaw told journalists yesterday that the last Senate never received nor discussed any of such letter on the floor.
According to him, transfer of Bakassi to Cameroon by Obasanjo without ratification by the National Assembly was a violation of Section 12(1) of the Constitution.
Sen. Adeleke Olorunimbe Mamora, another returnee senator, in a reaction said: "I am not aware of any such letter and if former Senate president Ken Nnamani had said that he didn't receive such letter from Obasanjo who then is in position to contradict that?"
Mamora, like other senators, insisted that no such issue was presented on the floor of the Senate for discussion adding that the transfer of Bakassi to Cameroon was a unilateral decision of the former president.
According to Mamora, "the leadership of Obasanjo was characterized by impunity and flagrant abuse of the rule of law."
Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, however, maintained that the ceding of Bakassi to Cameroon without the ratification of the green tree agreement between the two countries remain a nullity and unconstitutional.
He said, the first schedule of the Constitution which captured Bakassi as part of Nigeria needed to be amended for such exercise to be of any legal effect.
But, also yesterday, chairman of the Nigerian delegation to the Nigerian-Cameruon Mixed Commission (NCMC), Ajibola declared that the Senate's rejection of the agreement on Bakassi was of no consequence on the cession by Nigeria as the judgement remained superior to the Constitution.
Rising from about three hours meeting between President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua and members of the delegation at the Presidential Villa, the chairman stated that controversial Bakassi was presently three-quarters controlled by the Republic of Cameroon and should be seen by all Nigerians as a closed chapter.
Ajibola told State House correspondents that the highly-touted non-ratification of the agreement by Nigeria's legislative arm of government was purely a domestic problem among Nigerians and should not be an attempt to whip a dead horse, as there is no going back on Bakassi.
"The ratification is just a process of bringing in what has been internationally endorsed and agreed to and it is binding in accordance to the Vienna Convention on treaty. For example Cameroon has nothing to do by what we are doing. But Nigeria should try to put its own house in order. And that would not stop the procedures going on outside there. As of today we have people working on the field concerning demarcation there is nothing that would stop that assignment."
He also said: "Let me read the law to you. No treaty between the federation and any other country shall have the force of law except to the extent to which any such treaty has been enacted into law by the national assembly. This is our domestic constitution. This is the constitution in Nigeria . When it comes to the matter of implementing an international decision this would not be an impediment against that decision or judgment, it would still be acted upon. The fact that you have not done your home work notwithstanding, you just have to go and do your home work. You see what I mean", he said.
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