Posted by By Tobi Soniyi and Ofonime Umanah on
Some indigenes of Bakassi, under the aegis of the Bakassi Movement for Self-Determination, have asked a Federal High Court in Abuja.....
Some indigenes of Bakassi, under the aegis of the Bakassi Movement for Self-Determination, have asked a Federal High Court in Abuja to halt the handover of the Bakassi peninsula to Cameroun.
They also asked the court for an order of perpetual injunction, restraining the Federal Government from expelling or removing them from Bakassi Local Government in Cross River State.
The plaintiffs are: Chief Orok Eneyo, Chief Emmanuel Effiong Etene, Ndabu Eyo Umo Nakanda, Emmanuel Okokon Asuquo, Ita Okon Nyong, Richard Ekpenyong and Elder Tony Ene Asuquo.
A Lagos-based lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana, filed the originating summons on behalf of the plaintiffs.
The Federal Government of Nigeria and the Cross River State Government are the defendants.
No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to declare that the treaty signed by President Olusegun Obasanjo and President Paul Biya of Cameroun in New York, United States, on June 12, is illegal and unconstitutional, as it has not been enacted into law by the National Assembly pursuant to Section 12 of 1999 constitution.
Meanwhile, a deal that may lead to the emergence of an Ambazania Republic, comprising the people of Southern Cameroun and the about-to-be-displaced people of Bakassi, is now in the offing.
The Southern Camerouns Peoples Organisation, the initiators of the alliance, was said to have met with the paramount ruler of Bakassi, Etinyin Etim Okon Edet, in Calabar on Monday over the issue.
Edet, however, told our correspondent on Tuesday that he knew nothing about such plans.
At the meeting, our correspondent learnt, chairman of the SCAPO, Dr. Kevin Ngwang Gumne, was said to have informed the Bakassi leader that rather than quit their land for Cameroun, the people of Bakassi should stay on and fight for their right.