THOUGH it is now more than a decade since the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula was ceded to Cameroun through the judgment of the International Court of Justice at The Hague, the memories of the development still hurt as they were relived Tuesday in Abeokuta, Ogun State, during the formal presentation of the book, Olusegun Obasanjo: The Presidential Legacy 1999-2007.

The presentation of the book, described as a “passionate account” of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s eight years in Aso Villa, was a major highlight of his 76th birthday and had former Governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke, as the book reviewer.

Incidentally, in attendance too was ‘Bola Ajibola, another dramatis persona in the Bakassi saga, among many other dignitaries.

Meanwhile, President Goodluck Jonathan and Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole Tuesday congratulated Obasanjo on his 76th birthday.

Duke’s review, no doubt, was deep and engaging. But as a key state actor in one of the issues raised in the book - ceding of Bakassi to Cameroun - the former governor seized the opportunity to present what he termed “an authentic and an unbiased account of what transpired leading to the judgment that ceded Bakassi, a local council then in Cross River State to the Republic of Cameroun.”

Although not a contributor to the book project, Duke believed his fresh account could add value to the documentation.

His account: “The status of Bakassi had always been in a quandary to people within its vicinity and the Nigerian nation in general. Both the nations of Nigeria and Cameroun laid claim to it and certain actions taken during the Nigerian civil war, remain unclear or may indeed have compounded the situation,” Duke stated as he did a flashback to 1913 when “the British colonial authorities” ceded Bakassi “to the Cameroun-controlled German authorities.

The crux of the matter at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, he stressed, “was whether the British had the authority to cede what was not theirs. As Southern Nigeria, of which Bakassi was a part of at the time, was a protectorate and not a colony.

More: http://channelkoos.com/index.php/news/4058-real-reason-why-we-lost-bakassi-to-cameroon-donald-duke

Just passing

gratiaeo: Just passing

Abeg buy me akara if you r coming back!

After calabash don fall and water don waste...
Time go come wey wind go expose chicken yansh...