My Naija News - Opposition asks Nigerian government to defer Bakassi handover

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Opposition asks Nigerian government to defer Bakassi handover

Wednesday, 13 August 2008

The Action Congress (AC) has asked Nigeria’s federal government to defer to a later date the planned handover of the Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 if indeed the government believes in its own rule of law and due process mantra.

In a statement issued in Abuja Wednesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the delay will give the government time to submit the Green Tree Agreement to the National Assembly for ratification, thereby ensuring that the laws of Nigeria are not breached just to satisfy the international community.

AC said it backed the argument that the handover of the peninsula to Cameroon would be in vain if the Yar’Adua administration fails to seek the ratification, by the National Assembly, of the agreement it signed in New York with Cameroon over the implementation of the 2002 ruling of International Court of Justice (ICJ).

It said Section 12 (I) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is unambiguous: "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."

The party said if the Yar’Adua administration fails to follow the country’s Constitution and goes ahead to hand over Bakassi to Cameroon on Thursday, it would have broken the country’s laws and set the stage for the enthronement of arbitrariness and expediency over rule of law and due process.

"Even if the government has scoffed at the ruling of Justice Muhammed Umar of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, restraining the FG from handing over the peninsula until the determination of the case brought by Bakassi indigenes, it cannot afford to trash the Nigerian Constitution.

"The temptation to go ahead with the handover, just to win some immediate favours from the international community - especially by an administration that is standing on one foot - is so great. But succumbing to it will bring more pain than joy at the end.

"We therefore join well-meaning Nigerians and organisations to appeal to the Yar’Adua administration to do the right thing before handing over Bakassi, in line with the ICJ ruling. Nothing is sacrosanct about August 14th that it cannot be deferred," AC said.

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