Director-General of the National Boundary Commission (NBC), Surv. Adamu Adaji has clarified that Nigeria was not ceding any more territories to neighbouring Cameroon.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports Surv. Adaji made the clarification on Monday during a media parley with top media executives in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Adaji made the clarification while noting that the Nigeria-Cameroon border issue had been settled in the year 2002 by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
He stressed that the 2022 judgement that ceded the Bakassi Peninsula in Nigeria to the Republic of Cameroon still stands, and that what is ongoing now are efforts to implement that judgment.
The NBC DG said the Commission was poised to resolve the four out of 20 issues concerning the Nigeria-Cameroon border in 2022.
“There are areas where we have ambiguities or misinterpretations of the judgment. In that case, we put our heads together and try to resolve them amicably.
“When we had over 20 disagreement areas, we were able to resolve all of them, we have just four left; and of those four, we have plans to address them squarely in the year 2022.
“So, it was a rumour that Cameroon was asking for more territories from Nigeria after the judgment at the ICJ that ceded Bakassi to it. That is not true.
“The Nigeria-Cameroon border issue had been settled in the year 2002 by the ICJ. What we do is try to implement that judgment,’’ Adaji said.
According to the NBC boss, no country at this point would want to deviate by asking for more territories.
He added that Cameroon had never asked Nigeria for more territories, adding that, there was a time that a rumour trended that Cameroon would take over some territories from Nigeria.
“It was also rumoured that the UN wanted to create a country out of Nigeria and Cameroon. This was mischievous information just to cause fears.
“The UN cannot create a country out of other countries; neither can Cameroon ask for more territories from Nigeria other than what was decided by the ICJ.
“So what we are doing now is to implement the decision of the ICJ. There is no other request by either Nigeria or Cameroon for more territories from the other. We only have four areas of ambiguity to resolve,’’ Adaji stressed.
In his address, Adaji gave a breakdown of the history of the creation of the various administrative units that derived their root from the British Colonial rule in Nigeria.
He noted that the lack of adequate knowledge of the territory and the people was quite pronounced in the haphazard manner the British Colonial Administration tried to map out the country for effective governance.
Adaji’s address at the media parley reads in part: “As you already know, the history of the creation of the various administrative units derived its root from the British Colonial rule. Thus the first exercise at internal boundary creation was carried out by British Colonial Administrators: who had very little or no knowledge of the topography of the country.
“The lack of adequate knowledge of the territory and the people was quite pronounced in the haphazard manner the British Colonial Administration tried to map out the country for effective governance.
“The Provinces and Regions, which emerged, had little or no resemblance to the Ethno Cultural linkage, nor the political and economic groupings that existed before the imposition of the colonial rule.
“Nigeria’s colonially imposed administrative boundaries simply followed the dictates of greater divide and rule colonial policy of the time.
“The post independence creation of new administrative units changed from the exploitative colonial motive to the objective of bringing the government closer to the people which is development oriented. It is indeed a clear departure from the emphasis of administrative boundaries as barriers to that of integration and bridge concept to promote the oneness of the entire country.
“Unfortunately, this change has not been fully reflected in the general attitude to the nation’s administrative boundaries as regrettably some still perceive our interstate and inter-local government boundaries as barriers of separation and division.
“Before the establishment of the National Boundary Commission, a number of ad hoc measures had been adopted to deal with boundary disputes in the past. It is because of the failure of these past efforts to bring about a lasting solution that the former President Gen. Ibrahim Babangida Administration decided to set up a permanent outfit (The National Boundary Commission) to deal with the problem in all its ramifications.
“The good news is the declining trend in the incident of violent clashes arising from boundary disputes as a result of the activities of the National Boundary Commission. This does not however, remove the fact that the nation still witnesses occasional cases of destruction to human lives and properties from internal boundary clashes than from clashes over the country’s international boundaries.
“We at the National Boundary Commission want to put a complete halt to the rather unfortunate trend whereby the creation of new State or Local Government units lead to hostilities along the affected boundaries. We want to remove all the existing frontiers of hostilities and create frontiers of peace and harmony in which inter-community activities flourish along and across boundary lines. We want boundary dwellers to interact freely on the basis of mutual understanding and accommodation.
“The NBC Establishment Act (2006) provides for the management of boundary issues at the levels of the three tiers of government. At whatever level the problem is being handled, the Commission will ensure that those involved do all that is possible to solve the human problem endemic in boundary disputes to ensure that they do not recur. Since its inception, the Commission has vigorously pursued the objective of handling boundary disputes both at the international, National and Local Government levels.
“With regards to the internal boundaries, the Commission’s focuses on dispute prevention, dispute resolution, boundary definition and trans border relation’s maintenance. Programmes are pursued vigorously through such activities which involve: searches for delimitation records, joint meetings of officials of the States and National Boundary Commission, joint field investigations by constituted field teams, physical boundary testing on the ground, joint sensitization and enlightenment campaigns, ethnographic studies amongst border communities, advocacy/appeal visits to disputing communities, workshops/seminars, etc.
“At the international boundaries level, the Commission’s activities are conducted in bilateral or multilateral arrangements with neighbouring nations and in some cases with the intervention of Regional or International organizations such the United Nations, Nigeria-Niger Joint Commission for Cooperation, Lake Chad Basin Commission etc among others”.
