Posted by From NWABUEZE OKONKWO, Onitsha on
Following the handing over of the much talked about Bakassi penunsular, a human rights group under the aegis of Human Rights Guide, has openly accused former President Olusegun Obasanjo of conspiring with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague to cede the Bakassi Peninsular to the Republic of Cameroon just because it is in Biafran terrotory.
Following the handing over of the much talked about Bakassi penunsular, a human rights group under the aegis of Human Rights Guide, has openly accused former President Olusegun Obasanjo of conspiring with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague to cede the Bakassi Peninsular to the Republic of Cameroon just because it is in Biafran terrotory.
The group said such a transaction was not only illegal but colossally criminal for the Nigerian authorities to have sold the Peninsular which situated in the heart of the then Eastern part of Nigeria, adding that in the first place, Biafran land could not have been considered a Nigerian affair, not to talk of selling it to another country altogether.
Addressing a press conference at Onitsha, Anambra State, Thursday, the national co-ordinator of the group, Comrade Raphael Agu (a.k.a. Commodore), described the whole episode as mere conspiracy against Easterners, as well as a complete Obasanjo affair, stressing that there is no doubt that Obasanjo is by now warming up for his compensation from the Cameroonian authorities as soon as the proposed August 14 handover ceremony was successfully conducted.
Agu who is also the secretary-general of Okpoko Community Development Association (OCDA), recalled that Nigerians, for sure, are not in a hurry to forget the Ugandan episode in which the same Obasanjo as the military Head of State in the 1970s had allegedly stolen over $10 billion US Dollars from the Nigerian treasury and in a bid to transfer same, the fund was intercepted by the former Ugandan leader, Idi Amin who allegedly had a cut of $2.8 billion Dollars before allowing the rest of the amount to pass through his territory.
Agu who was flanked by Kingsley Okuma, the PRO and other members of the group, including Elder Raphael Soronnadi, contended that the effect of Obasanjo's mismanagement of the economy in those days had dealt a devastating blow to the honest government of former President Shehu Shagari whose administration bore the heavy burden till it was toppled by the Ibrahim Babangida military regime in 1983. According to the group, "Obasanjo has always milked Nigeeria like a vampire which must suck the last drop of blood from its victim. He has never meant well for Nigeria. If he had meant well, why could he not have looked for an alternative means of compensating the Cameroonians for that country's role in ensuring that Biafra was defeated, adding, even though that war concluded with a declaration of 'no victor, no vanquished', Obasanjo and his cohorts had put everything in place to cede a Biafran territory like the Bakassi peninsular to Cameroon without permission".
They said the fact that Obasanjo did not consult the Senate and the House of Representatives before proceeding to the ICJ to 'contest' the Peninsular case leaves no doubt on enybody's mind about his role in the matter, insisting that Obasanjo and his cohorts were not in the ICJ to seek the good of Nigeria but their own selfish interests.
They said it was very sad to note that the ICJ which is supposed to be the fountain of justice, has at this instance, fallen to the level of the ridiculous, saying that it is imperative that the world powers, such as the European Union, United Nations, British Council of Human Rights, American Human Rights Council, United Arab Emirate, All Human Rights Groups in Nigeria should unite with the Guide in condemning the travesty of justice unleashed on Nigeria by the ICJ at Hague.
Declaring that the justice Nigeria today is a threat to justice the world over, the group asked rhetorically: "why did the Nigerian authorities not sell Mubi in Adamawa State and maiduguri in Borno State to cameroon who laid claims to those two Nigerian towns but was in a hurry to dispose of the Peninsular because it is located in the eastern part of the country and earmarked as compensation to Cameroon if Nigeria won the civil war?"