Nigerian Jurists Pledge Unalloyed Support for Anyangawe-led Government

-Affirm that Bakassi is "Golden Road" to Southern Cameroons Independence Restoration

Cumulative efforts are being exerted by some Nigerian jurists to lay bare the illegality and shame surrounding the plight of the Bakassi indigenes, and as an appendage, the British Southern Cameroons. In an exhilarating presentation at a Human Rights Workshop in London, the leader of the Nigerian jurists, one Barrister Chinedu Munir Nwoko, took all aback when he surmised that both the United Nations and La République du Cameroun faltered in the actions they took over the Southern Cameroons. He authenticated his case by making direct bearings to the recent Greentree Treaty, which reflects the illicitness and wrongness the U.N. and the "stupid Government " of the inheritor States have always handled issues of the region.

The Nigerian jurists opined that the U.N. had no legal authority to conduct the so-called plebiscite in the Southern Cameroons after trusteeship had technically been terminated with the promulgation of the territory's independent Constitution in October 1960.

Chinedu further stated that there is no legal basis for Yaounde to lay claims on Southern Cameroon's territory-especially those with huge natural resources like Bakassi,   Ndu, Tole, Nwa, Furu-Awa, Kumba etc.

The crux of Chinedu's argument was that the plebiscite manifesto stated that if the people offered to join La Republique du Cameroun, then there would be a post-plebiscite U.N. Conference to work out a draft constitution which Southern Cameroons and LRC would then submit to the population for approval. But, the jurists held, the U.N. soon realised that the plebiscite in the Southern Cameroons was without legal authority, so it dropped the proposed confederacy and scrapped the commission of experts which it had appointed for the purpose.

This thus entails that any claim by LRC over any Southern Cameroons territory has already collapsed before Nigeria takes the Southern Cameroons case to The Hague as demanded by SCAPO. LRC is by this deprived of any right to sue Nigeria on Bakassi. These eminent Nigerian jurists thus argue that for Bakassi to be wrestled out of Nigeria's grip in any court of law, LRC will have to make the Southern Cameroons a co-plaintiff against Nigeria.

The jurists conclude that Nigeria must support the newly formed British Southern Cameroons Restoration Government to enable her negotiate with the latter on the basis of mutual sovereign equality- which would make any agreement between Nigerian and Southern Cameroons on boundary adjustments valid and unimpeachable. Nigeria will thus stand to get a better deal from her Junior Brother ( J.B ) the Southern Cameroons than from the French Cameroun. To the jurists, the crisis at Bakassi has opened the way for the Southern Cameroons problem to be better viewed by the world and Nigeria stands to play a big role. He ended with " what a wonderful time for the British Southern Cameroons Restoration Government. We can only promise it our unalloyed support."