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Senator Bassey Ewa-Henshaw represents Cross River South in the Senate. Recently he moved a motion to reverse the ceding of Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon. Why did he do that? How would he respond to talks about hidden motives in his motion? Henshaw speaks to Sunday Trust.

ST: What prompted you to move a motion against ceding of Bakassi to Cameroon at this point in time?

Ewa-Henshaw: The truth is that the people of Bakassi are represented by me in the Senate, to that extent I am their representative. Since they were moved from their ancestral lands, they were promised by the Federal Government of Nigeria that they were going to be properly resettled in another location. Up to this moment that I am talking to you that pledge has not been fulfilled. I believe that our constitution requires that the primary purpose of government is security and well being of the people. To that extent the government has not been fair to the people of Bakassi.

First of all the process of ceding Bakassi was faulty. Section 12 of the 1999 Constitution requires that the National Assembly should ratify any convention. If you read it carefully, it says 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. Therefore, in the first place the process through which Bakassi was ceded was wrong. On top of that the promise that was made by the government to the people before relocating them has not been forthcoming.

The area that was proposed for them at Ikan in Akpabio Local Government Area of Cross Rivers State, no enough discussion has taken place to ensure that the people are properly assimilated and resettled. Before they were taken to the place there are people who are originally living there already, so there is now the question of who gets what in terms of sharing of public offices. That has resulted to the last local government election not to hold in that area. Elections were held in all the other 17 local governments in the state, except in Bakassi. So there is a problem there.

You were a senator at the time former President Olusegun Obasanjo ceded the area to Cameroon, why didn't you take any action at that time?

The first motion I raised on Bakassi Peninsula was in 2004. One of the key prayers that were adopted by the Senate at that time was that the chairman of the Nigeria-Cameroon Mixed Commission should come and brief the Senate about what was going on. That did not happen.

Is it true that some of you senators at that time refused to say anything for fear of losing re-election ticket from your party?

I want to assure you that that is not true. I already told you that the first motion I moved on Bakassi was in 2004 and all that we know about the agreement is what we have downloaded it from the internet. If it had been placed before us we would have taken a proper look at it and decided what to do. I don't think anybody is afraid of any other person, we are operating a constitutional democracy, we represent people and ultimately it is those people that decide whether or not we return to the Senate.

But don't you think that moving this motion few days after Cameroonian soldiers were attacked in the area could be taken that Nigeria is behind the attack?

No I don't think so. Part of the so called Greentree Agreement signed by former President Obasanjo and his Cameroonian counterpart was that the entire Bakassi area should be demilitarized. No military presence is supposed to be in that area for the next five years. And I remember that after ceding the place on August 14, 2006 on the 21st of that month, former President Obasanjo held a peace parade in Calabar Stadium to mark the withdrawal of Nigerian Soldiers from the Peninsula. In the first place the fact that Cameroonian soldiers were attacked and killed by whoever, I don't know who they are, but the fact that Cameroonian were killed in that peninsula implies that the Cameroonians themselves have violated that Greentree agreement which they signed with former President Obasanjo. This is because they are not supposed to have any military presence there either.

President Obasanjo has brought out a letter to prove that he actually sought for Senate ratification on the Bakassi issue. Did you see the letter?

I don't remember seeing any letter from President Obasanjo. And I also do not remember if any such letter was read on the floor of the Senate by the former Senate President. I read to you section 12 of the constitution and it emphasizes that any treaty cannot have the force of law except if it has been enacted into law by the National Assembly. Now we have had other treaties and international conventions. When they are sent to the National Assembly for ratification, they are sent in the form of bills for passage into law. So the issue of sending a letter by former President Obasanjo even if the letter was sent cannot amount to proper procedure of seeking Senate ratification of the treaty. Because a bill ought to have been drafted attached with the treaty and sent to the National Assembly for passage into law. We don't pass letters into law and we don't act on letters we act on bills.

Now that the motion has been adopted, how would you pursue its implementation?

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