Senate Leader, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, on Wednesday, said Nigeria is at the verge of losing the popular Obudu Resort and eight local government areas in Criss Rivers State to Cameroon, if the ongoing boundary adjustment by the United Nations (UN) sails through.
The senator, in an invites with newsmen in Abuja, said the boundary adjustment between Nigeria and Cameroon, being coordinated by the UN, could amount to a great disadvantage for the country.
The boundary adjustment is being undertaken in respect of the 2002 judgment of the International Court of Justice, which ceded the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula to the Cameroon.
Senator Ndoma-Egba said already, the people of the state were gripped with tension, following the visit of the UN boundary adjustment team led by Mr Isaac Baya of Zimbabwe.
He said the team was in Nigeria and Cameroon to implement the Green Tree Agreement, based on the ICJ verdict.
“There are some boundary delineation exercise going on as a result of the Green Tree Agreement, which was the consequence of the judgment of the International Court of Justice on what we call Bakassi.
“The agreement necessitated some boundary adjustments and that exercise started somewhere from Lake Chad and it supposed to go right down to the Atlantic Ocean in the South, so the exercise is going on in a place called Danari, in Boki Local Government in my constituency.
“The Anglo/German boundary of 1913 has been there and a particular beacon stone, beacon 113, we heard, cannot be found. The rest has been found and that is the one they are trying to locate. The UN team is insisting on taking a straight line. Now the communities believe that beacon is somewhere furthering in the Cameroon.
“If they do a straight line as they want to do, then we will be losing some communities to Cameroon, including the famous Agbokim Water Falls. I am in touch with the Cross River State government and the community, we are looking at it, so that I will bring a formal motion to the floor, you know I came under Order 42 the last time just to give notice about my intension to bring a motion,” he said.
He said he wanted to make a case for the UN team to just accept the traditional boundaries that the two communities agreed on and “let the sleeping dogs lie.”
“What is even more worrisome is that few days ago, the team was there (Danari) with soldiers and we have been wondering where these soldiers come from, without informing the local and state governments,” he said.
The Senate Leader also ruled out the possibility of Nigeria returning to a unicameral legislature, adding that a multi-ethnic and multicultural country like Nigeria could only practice bicameral legislative system.
