Nigeria Rejects Disputed Land Ruling
By Associated Press

October 23, 2002, 12:35 PM EDT

ABUJA, Nigeria -- The Nigerian government said Wednesday it rejects a
World Court ruling that granted possession of a disputed oil-rich
peninsula to neighboring Cameroon. 

In the first comprehensive government statement since the United
Nations' highest judicial body gave its ruling on Oct. 10, Transport
Minister Ojo Maduekwe said Nigeria disagreed with the judgment because
it was based on colonial treaties that Nigeria does not consider
legitimate. 

The Hague, Netherlands-based court failed to recognize rights of
traditional kings and chiefs as true owners of the land, said Madueke,
who addressed reporters after a weekly cabinet meeting. 

The dispute over the Bakassi peninsula, in the Gulf of Guinea, and
northern villages on shores of Lake Chad, brought the two countries to
the brink of war in 1981, and caused repeated clashes since then. 

Nigeria also accused the judges of the court, the U.N.'s highest
judicial body, of having conflicts of interest because the court's
president, Gilbert Guillaume, is French and Cameroon is a former French
colony. 

British and German judges should have similarly disqualified themselves
from ruling on the dispute because of their countries' past colonial
ties to Nigeria and Cameroon, Maduekwe said, reading a six-page
statement. 

The statement said President Olusegun Obasanjo's government wanted to
resolve the border dispute with Cameroon peacefully and would be open to
future talks over who owns the territory. 
Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press

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