It would not have been a war between ourselves; it would have been a war between Nigeria, on one side, and Cameroon, China, Malaysia, France and Russia on the other side. Where would Nigeria have been? We would have been exactly another Syria. We would have been ruined.[quote][/quote]

Bakassi peninsular is a 1,600-kilometre land boundary between Nigeria, near the city of Calabar in Cross River State, and the Rio del Ray estuary in Cameroon. It was an area inhabited by citizens of both Nigeria and Cameroon.

Due to population growth, which was once put at between 150,000 and 300,000 people, and the attendant increase in human activities on the two sides, the boundary that existed between the two countries became hazy.

Over time, the ownership of this area, said to be very rich in diverse mineral resources, soon became an issue of conflict between Nigeria and Cameroon. While Nigeria argued that it had been in possession of the area in dispute and that its citizens were predominant in the area, Cameroon maintained that regardless of who had been in occupation, the land had belonged to it since the colonial era. It added that the British ceded Bakassi to Germany through the Anglo-German agreement of 1913 and that Germany ceded it to France and then France ceded same to it (Cameroon).

The conflict strained the relationship between Nigeria and Cameroon severely, to the extent that there were military confrontations between the two countries. Few years after, precisely in 1994, Cameroon took the matter, among other issues, to the International Court of Criminal Justice, also known as the World Court, at The Hague, for adjudication.

The matter was in that court for eight years, and at the end, the court ruled on October 10, 2002 that Bakassi belonged to Cameroon, relying on evidence available, especially the Anglo-German agreement.

This decision did not go down well with Nigeria, prompting the United Nations to set up the Cameroon-Nigeria Mixed Commission, so as to avoid further confrontations or....

Full story : https://defensenigeria./2017/06/28/how-ceding-bakassi-to-cameroon-saved-nigerian-from-a-major-war/