Posted by By JAMES OJO, Abuja. on
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chief Ojo Madueke and his counterparts in the Ministry of Justice, Michael Kaase Aondoakaa, have been summoned by the House of Representatives on the ceding of Bakassi to the Republic of Cameroun under the Green Tree Agreement.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chief Ojo Madueke and his counterparts in the Ministry of Justice, Michael Kaase Aondoakaa, have been summoned by the House of Representatives on the ceding of Bakassi to the Republic of Cameroun under the Green Tree Agreement.
The government of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo had obeyed the ruling of the International Court Of Justice in the Hague on the ownership of the rich Bakassi Peninsula and entered into the Green Tree Agreement on the modalities to implement the judgment.
The House, however, expressed worry that the executive had begun the implementation of the agreement, leading to dislocation of Nigerians from Bakassi without the ratification of the treaty by the National Assembly.
As a result, 81 members, drawn from all the political parties in the House moved a motion on the implementation of the Green Tree Agreement and the ceding of Bakassi to the Republic of Cameroun and the House resolved to summon the two ministers to brief the House.
Before the motion, moved by Action Congress (AC) Leader, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, who is the minority deputy whip, said his party had earlier threatened to sue the Federal Government over the implementation of the International Court judgment without recourse to the National Assembly.
But moving the motion, Gbajabiamila said Section 12 of the 1999 Constitution, as well as Order16 (1) of the Standing Orders of the House stated clearly that 'no bilateral or multilateral treaty or agreement can be effected or executed without the approval of the National Assembly and that all such treaties are to be subjected to the same procedure as every other bill and enacted into law."
Acknowledged that the court judgment and the Green Tree Agreement are premised on boundary adjustment, he noted that Nigerians have been dislocated from their ancestral homes.
Gbajabiamila also pointed to Section 8 of the 1999 Constitution that provided for ways and manners any boundary adjustment can be made.
Hon. Bassey from Calabar/Odukpani Federal Constituency of Cross River State, where the affected people came from, painted a gory picture of what the people are going through in the hands of Camerounian security agents.
Apart from the summoning of the ministers, the House called on President Umaru Yar'Adua to forward a bill on the treaty to the National Assembly for further action as required by law.