OBASANJO: A Presidential Memoir and the Ceding of Bakassi Peninsula!

A Presidential Memoir, without a reasonable and convincing expose on the ceding of States’ Rights and Territorial Integrity to another country or countries at the instance of the President is totally and unequivocally incomplete. Such a memoir is un-presidential, half-baked, and in every respect, inconsistent with the style and manner of works of Great Presidents. 

What I do know is that, if the ceding of our own Bakassi Peninsular, a community, and its people, rich in the cultural and unquantifiable magnitude of natural mineral resources, were to happen under a government or administration headed by President Jonathan, Obasanjo would have by now, conspired and driven the “infidel Jonathan” out of Aso Rock. Hate him or love him, President Jonathan did not bargain away our rights, our people, our mineral resources, and our entitlements in a territory that was and has been a part of that geographical landmass that later evolved into the Nigerian Republic in 1914. President Obasanjo did, when he was the President of Nigeria.

The uncoordinated forced evacuation of native Nigerians from their native towns and villages collectively known as Bakassi Peninsular under President Obasanjo was a crime against humanity. They gave them two options: If you elect not to pay allegiance to the Cameroonian flag, and retains your Nigerian citizenship, you must evacuate yourself and your belongings to a new settlement. In that case, your culture, your herds, your business, your farm, your animals, your neighbors and neighborhood that date back to decades, must let go. And some of them did so. 

The second option was: If you choose to remain in Bakassi Peninsular, and do not desire to let go of your business and cultural heritage, you automatically renounced your Nigerian citizenship, and therefore, become Cameroonians. 

Today, those who succumbed to the promptings of president Obasanjo and accompanied him to the unknown cannot tell their stories of woes, of deprivations, of defeat and abandonment by a government and leadership that lied to them.  

A Nigerian who is now a Cameroonian, later told newsmen that from time immemorial, they have been Nigerians. The lands are theirs. In other words, there was never a time, when their identity as a people or as a race was in doubt. There was never any known migration from another land to present Bakassi Peninsular. They have been part of the land and the land has been part of them as Nigerians. According to the news report, the gentleman said he decided to stay and become Cameroonian, because of his business and family to fend for. Basically, it was the fear of the unknown.

Today, Cross River State, though still an Oil Producing State, thanks to President Obasanjo, no longer enjoy the presence of oil wells like the neighboring states as it was before - a development that cuts drastically into the financial wherewithal and stability of the once robust model state. That part of the State, that part of Nigeria, known to be very rich in oil wells was ceded to Cameroon. No present political leader is talking or concerned about the massive economic and social deprivations that accompanied the willful surrender and at the peril of Nigerian as a nation-states.

As President Obasanjo’s Memoir makes the round in bookshops and talk shops, one thing is certain; himself and his generations and political friends will not know poverty again. They have succeeded in enriching themselves with lucrative oil blocs and other wealth-building apparatus. And they have nonchalantly acquiesced on our collective rights as a nation-state in the face of modern-day robbery and false partitioning of a sovereign territory at the behind the scene prompting by France and by an ICJ whose convoluted finding lacks precedent as to statutes or facts.

That Obasanjo, a rambunctious retired military officer should capitulate so easily, and without protest, should not come to anyone by surprise. He was at that point in time scheming to subvert our constitutional framework as it relates to the succession process, with a view to undermining the term limits. Going by his calculation, anything worth doing to be the good boy of influential western powers and in the good book of international institutions are worth doing well, even if it means sacrificing a viable and age-old component of the Nigerian state.

Here is a poser for Mr. Obasanjo: Where is Hawaii? Where is Guam? Where is Alaska? How far are they from the nearest State or States within the US mainland? The same question also goes to Falkland Territory. How far is it from the mainland of the United Kingdom? In this modern era, great Presidents strive to retain or annex any land or waterway that poses any form of strategic, economic, or security risk or harm. Most often, they do so without regard to the legal or arbitration process. 

Given the fact that President Obasanjo does not belong to the class of the great men and women who thought it fit and of overriding national interest to acquire or retain the territories mentioned above, I would humbly suggest to the former President to take a course from his good friend, President George Walker Bush, on how to be Presidential on retirement. He should, with all due respect, leave President Jonathan alone. Let Nigerians decide whether to retain him at Aso Rock or vote him out at the next Presidential election. In four years, President Jonathan who does not know how to govern fixed the roads that you, Mr. Perfect President, couldn’t fix in eight years. That is a fact. Thank you.