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 this 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 they elect not to pay allegiance to the Cameroonian flag and retain their Nigerian citizenship, they must evacuate themselves and their belongings to a new settlement. In that case, your culture, your herds, your business, your farm, your animals, your neighbours and your neighbourhood that date back decades must be 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 renounce 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, deprivations, 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 the 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 neighbouring 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 the peril of Nigeria as a nation-state.

As President Obasanjo’s Memoir makes the rounds in bookshops and talk shops, one thing is certain; he 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-scenes 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 anyone by surprise. He was then scheming to subvert our constitutional framework as it relates to the succession process to undermine 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 is 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.