Nigeria appears ready to make good on its promise to hand over the once-contested and oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula to its neighbor Cameroon.
The highly contested peninsula that once brought the neighboring West African nations to war will be turned over Thursday, according to Nigerian officials.
"We want to use this handover occasion to celebrate the goodness of our people, the capacity of our government to honor commitments from government to government, and also to celebrate the friendship between two countries," Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister Ojo Maduekwe said Wednesday.
Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua told lawmakers in December that the country would implement an International Court of Justice ruling in the coming year.
"Having submitted to the jurisdiction of the ICJ, Nigeria became duty bound to respect its judgment," he said of the court's edict made in October 2002.
The territory between the West African neighboring nations has been a point of contention between Nigeria and Cameroon for more than a century, dating back to the colonial period. Cameroon currently administers the territory to the north while Nigeria controls the southern half.
The two countries appeared to be on the verge of war over the territory in 1981. Several armed clashes in the 1990s prompted Cameroon to first take the dispute to the ICJ in 1994. A U.N. observer team is expected to arrive in the peninsula in early 2008 to assess potential problems facing those who could be displaced by the territory's handover to Cameroon, Nigeria's This Day newspaper reported.
Relatively underdeveloped and considered one of the world's most fertile fishing grounds, the Bakassi Peninsula is believed to hold oil riches similar to those of the Niger Delta, which produces an estimated 2 million barrels per day.
Numerous foreign oil companies have made inquiries into securing the rights to explore the peninsula, though the territory remains untapped.
Yar'Adua's decision to honor the court's ruling on such a potentially lucrative piece of land has some praising the Nigerian leader for his diplomatic decision-making.
"I think it's a very favorable sign that Yar'Adua has taken this position," J. Anthony Holmes, Africa expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, told United Press International.
That Yar'Adua decided to move forward with the handover, despite obvious interest in tapping into its oil and gas potential, "says a lot about positive leadership in Nigeria," Holmes said.
The Nigerian president has already faced his share of political challenges at home since assuming office in May 2007, most notably from the armed militants and gangs that pervade the Niger Delta. Violence against oil companies and others in the region is blamed for the 20-percent reduction in oil production in the delta in recent years.
"The handover event will be a very controversial move in Nigeria," noted Mark Schroeder, a sub-Saharan Africa analyst for Stratfor Strategic Forecasting Inc.
"While it will uphold the rule of law for President Umaru Yar'Adua and will resolve this outstanding issue with Cameroon, leading to improved relations with that country, it will expose Yar'Adua to severe criticism that he has undermined his country's geopolitical integrity for little in return."
Just how severe that criticism will be, only time will tell after Thursday's handover to Cameroon becomes official.
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