‘Lightning never strikes twice,’ is an old proverb, which finds relevance in the’ renewed’ agitation by Nigerian politicians to reclaim the conceded oil-rich Bakassi Peninsular, or to attract more money and positions to themselves. At noon on Monday, 16th August 2012, a pirate radio operating on 4.2 MHz and 5.2 MHz shortwave featured a self-styled “Commander-General” Oku, Ekpenyong, of a previously unknown Bakassi Self-Determination Front (BSDF).
‘Lightning never strikes twice,’ is an old proverb, which finds relevance in the’ renewed’ agitation by Nigerian politicians to reclaim the conceded oil-rich Bakassi Peninsular, or to attract more money and positions to themselves. At noon on Monday, 16th August 2012, a pirate radio operating on 4.2 MHz and 5.2 MHz shortwave featured a self-styled “Commander-General” Oku, Ekpenyong, of a previously unknown Bakassi Self-Determination Front (BSDF).
The male coercive voice ran through like lightning, issuing orders and ultimatums, that about Saturday, 11th August and Sunday, August 12, 2012 respectively, its insurgencies to reclaim the Cameroon Bakassi will commence.
At Dayspring, a small isle in the Bakassi Local Government Area of Cross River, Oku and his BSDF group had hoisted their blue-white-red flag dotted with stars to announce their action. The Bakassi Peninsular - before it was relocated to the Cameroonian territory was inhabited by the Efik ethnic group of southern Cross River, and migrant artisanal fishermen and women from other parts of mainly littoral parts of southern Nigeria – like the Ijaws, Ogonis, Ibibio, Annags, Oron and others. Most of the Efiks natives and others are still there.
As a result of the discovery of oil and gas in huge quantities both countries was locked in long-drawn-out legal battle over ownership the then disputed peninsular at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, the Netherlands. On 10th October 2002, the ICJ ruled in favour of Cameroon. Several residents spoke of the Bakassi Peninsular following the ICJ ruling, expressing deep displeasure over it. In 12th of June 2006, the then president of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Aramu Obasanjo led a Nigerian delegation to New York, where the Green Tree Agreement (GTA) was signed, and this sealed the deal.
A few days after, at an official ceremony held in the Cross River State Government lodge in Calabar, the capital of the state, amidst water-tight security, the Nigerian government handed over all documents related to the area to Cameroon authorities. The then governor of the State, Donald Duke, and others like Senator Florence Ita-Giwa, then special adviser to Obasanjo, was present and consented to the relinquishing of the Peninsular.
The consequences of the signing of the GTA, and the subsequent surrendering of the area to Cameroon, her south-eastern neighbour, sparked wild outrage and sadness among the local Bakassi residents, activists and leaders in the area adopted both legal and extra-legal means to challenge the transfer of their lands to the Cameroon. In late June, 2006, some Bakassi activists and leaders obtained an order from an Abuja High court to stop the then president from handing over the area to Cameroon, but the court order was not obeyed. This is a puzzle that lawyers should resolve. The Bakassi activists who dragged the Nigerian government to the Federal High Court in Abuja were Comrade Tony Ene Asuquo, Richard Ekpenyong and Ndabu Eyo-Umo Nakanda, others were Ita Okon Nyong, Emmanuel Okon Asuquo, Chiefs Orok Eneyo and Emmanuel Effiong Etene.
The die was cast and the struggle for a ceded Bakassi island took a fearsome dimension.Comrade Tony Ene Asuquo and his cadres reportedly held several secret meetings with leading Niger Delta militants and leaders of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) like Farah Ipalibo Dagogo, Boyloaf and others, with the aim of enlisting their support to save the land of their birth militarily. The deltaic militants had given their moral and logistical support to the secessionist struggle of the Bakassi people under the aegis of the Bakassi Movement for Self-Determination (BAMOSD). Apart from the Niger Delta support, the Southern Cameroon People’s Organization (SCAPO) was also in touch with Asuquo and his men.
They were to declare the Democratic Republic of Bakassi some days after and make Akwa Obutong their capital. The Nigerian intelligence community and the presidency under Obasanjo in league with the Cross River State Government led by Donald Duke was bothered about the activities of Asuquo and his BAMOSD group, and their seemingly threat to the ICJ verdict and GTA pact. A fervid and undercover witch/manhunt was deployed around the Bakassi activists and their group as well as their allies by government security officials. Richard Ekpenyong, one of the BAMOSD around then was arrested and thrown into jail; others went underground for fear of arrest or death. Comrade Tony Ene Asuquo, the diminutive leader of the group was travelling to Calabar in the early hours of August 22, 2006, along the Calabar – Itu highway on the central axis of Cross River State when suspected secret agents of the notorious Nigerian secret police, State Security Services (SSS) allegedly shot his vehicle in motion. The car crashed, he and other compatriots therein were fatally injured as a result of the crash, but were alive. The trailing deadly state agents shot them dead, and left in their pool of blood.
The death of Asuquo and his fighters didn’t stop the Bakassi Freedom Fighters (BFF), another well-armed band with well-trained fighters, with a lot of non Efik, mostly folks from Bayelsa State, Rivers and others as its fighters had raised its flat at Abana as its headquarters their Bakassi Republic. The dream republic was not realized due to the resolve of the Nigerian government primarily, who vowed to ensure the successful implementation of the ICJ ruling and the GTA accord. Bakassi, “the rising sun” was relinquished to Cameroon. One of the GTA requirements was that the Nigerian government creates a local government out of the Akpabujo Local Government, in present day Cross River and called it the Bakassi Local Government Area (the new Bakassi Nigeria). In the Bakassi Local Government Area of Cross River State, lots of Cameroon Bakassi returnees were settled, while those who remained in the old Bakassi (the Bakassi Peninsular now in Cameroon) are now Cameroon citizens.
The Cross River politicians had cashed in on the alleged inhuman treatments meted out to their kith and kin in the Cameroonian Bakassi to wage their new-fangled opportunistic struggle. Cross River lost in her bid to grapple dispute oil wells from her neighbouring state of Akwa Ibom failed, hence the attempt to make the old Bakassi. The Next Gulf; London, Washington and oil conflict in Nigeria, Andrew Rowell and other co-authors have warned us of the costs in this book.
Arthur lives in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria.
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