26 November 2009
FORMER Minister of Justice, Chief Bayo Ojo (SAN), on Tuesday in Cardiff, United Kingdom, recommended the Nigeria-Cameroon approach in the resolution of the Bakassi conflict to the international community.
Cameroon dragged Nigeria before the International Court of Justice at The Hague in 1994 asking it to declare that the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula lying at the maritime border between the two countries belonged to Cameroon.
After a protracted litigation, claims and counter-claims, the court declared in October 2002 that the territory actually belonged to Cameroon and ordered Nigeria to cede the territory to its neighbour.
In his lecture entitled: "Resolution of International Disputes by the United Nations - a case study of the Cameroon Vs. Nigeria Dispute", Ojo said that the magnanimity of Nigeria to obey and implement the court decision was a lesson in international conflict resolution for the rest of the world.
This, he said, could be emulated by many other countries to ensure that the world lived in peace.
Ojo, currently a member of the UN International Law Commission, extolled the role played by the UN, under the leadership of Kofi Anan, to bring the implementation of the court's decision to fruition.
He said that before the delivery of the judgment, Anan had invited Nigeria and Cameroon to a roundtable where the UN obtained a commitment from the two countries to abide by the court's decision whichever way the judgment went.
He said that it was worthwhile for the UN to stick to the Anan approach of preventing conflicts in the world.
"Preventing conflicts from escalating into conflagrations was a sure way of nipping them in the bud. "It is better to prevent conflicts before they degenerate and lives lost in wars," Ojo stressed.
He said the Greentree Agreement signed by Nigeria and Cameroon in 2005 ensured that the implementation of the decision went on smoothly.
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