Nigeria-Cameroon Border: CNPP Blasts Surveyor General, Nwilo, Owan-Enoh

Chairman of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) Cross River Chapter, Hon. Cletus Obun says recent comments made by the Surveyor General of the Federation (SGF), Professor Peter Nwilo and Chairman House Committee on Appropriation, John Owan-Enoh concerning the controversy surrounding the boundary between Nigeria and Cameroun in the central part of the state is treasonable.

The CNPP Chairman Obun stated this in reaction to separate comments made by Peter Nwilo and Owan-Enoh over attempts to cede some communities in the central part of Cross River to Cameroun as a result of the demarcation of boundary exercise started earlier this year, by the United Nations- Nigeria-Cameroun Mixed Commission.

Media reports quoted Peter Nwilo and Owan-Enoh as declaring that there was no truth whatsoever in the allegation that communities in the central part of the state were about being ceded to Cameroun.

Cletus Obun, who is a community leader in Boki Local Government Area of the state said it was improper for the issue to be treated with levity and even politicized at a period when the people of the communities are living under the fear of being treated as the people of Bakassi Peninsula who have become refugees after their communities were ceded to Cameroun.

Cletus Obun, who spoke to journalists in Calabar said, “Now, the insistence of the communities is that there are traditional boundaries between the Cameroun community of Buda/Mandajigi and Danare and Biajua of the Nigerian side and that the traditional boundary has been the River Baje. In trying to locate pillar 113A, it was agreed before the Senate Committee that the Cross River Government should assist the Federal Government to clear over 300 square metres of the areas they suspect 113A should be and that they have done.

“That they could not locate 113A, the next thing that ought to be done was to go back to ICJ (International Court of Justice) through the UN (United Nations) Security Council through the office of the Secretary General of the UN as enshrined in the ICJ judgement. The ICJ judgement stipulates how such disputes are adjudicated upon.”

“So, for Owan-Enoh, the representative of Etung/Obubra in the Federal House of Representatives and the Surveyor General of the Federation to say that there is no dispute is treasonable. It is my take that the Surveyor General of the Federation, than any other person else, should be tried for treason. He speaks like a Cameroonian official and does not speak for Nigeria”.

“The CNPP Chairman continued: “With this, it is very clear that the member representing Etung/Obubra in the House of Representatives is not acting in good faith and I plead with him not to politicize this matter because it will amount to provocation. This is an election year, we know, but this is not an election matter. So, we don't want anybody to score political points and cheap political favour by the kind of pronouncement he made about the lives and future of generations unborn.”

“Even the natural resources in that area are so great. Landmass you are talking about is over 30 square kilometers of rainforest which the international community and the UN and NGOs are giving carbon credit to Cross River state government and this is what Cameroon is looking for as they have done with the oil wells. They are not looking for population, they are looking for resources. This kind of economic acquisition of land and economic expansionism in 2014 in the 21st century is simply not acceptable. The Nigerian state is bound by international laws to protect its citizen in this area and if they are not going to do, we have the right to protect ourselves”.

Disagreeing with the Commission and the method it is applying in demarcating the boundaries , Cletus Obun said, “In any case on the face of it, when did pillars become boundary lines in international survey standard even by the minimum standard of International Survey are pillars boundary lines? They are only indicators of special geographical features which a pillar ought to indicate. For instance a pillar here points to the fact that there is a hill that has special interest or river. It is not a boundary line but a demarcation point internationally or locally.

“So, the insistence of pillar as a boundary line and using it as a boundary line is to short change Nigeria once again to concede part of our land. It is totally provocative for the Surveyor General who is not an indigene of the area to keep insisting on this line and ensuring that Nigerians are displaced and homeless as is the case in Bakassi today. It is wrong. It is the error of Bakassi we are about to pay for again in the hinterland and I think it should be resisted”.

Cletus Obun suggested that the Nigerian government should stop its officials from making unguided statements about the boundary issues between Nigeria and Cameroun.

It would be recalled that the demarcation exercise in central Cross River commenced February this year, a development that led to the raising of alarm by the people of Danare community in Boki Local Government Area to the effect that parts of Nigerian territories were about being ceded to Cameroun.

In a petition entitled: “Protest against the Illegal Demarcation of Nigeria-Cameroun Boundary,'' The chiefs and people of Danare alleged that there had been an illegal demarcation of the boundary between Nigeria and Cameroun at Danare and some other neighbouring communities.

The petition, signed by the village Head of Danare, Chief K.K. Mbia; the community chairman, Clement Abang and youth leader, Lawcity Mbia, stated in part: ''It will be recalled that the Nigeria-Cameroun Joint Commission, in conjunction with the UN are retracing the boundary, sequel to the judgment of the ICJ at the Hague over Bakassi Peninsula. The surveyors that are saddled with the responsibility of retracing the pillars depicting the boundary started the job at the axis of the boundary from pillar 110 to pillar 113 which is some meters away from the Primary School Danare 1 in Boki Local Government Area.

“Efforts at retracing pillar 113A which distances six miles (9.6km) from pillar 113 by the surveyors had proved abortive. Consequent upon their inability to retrace pillar 113A, the Danare community asked the surveyors to stop creating new boundary lines and visit the archives to garner information or request the appropriate authority to oblige them with well defined maps that would enable them to navigate the seemingly confusing situation they are confronted with.''