By Anthony Ochela, Abuja
Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Ndarani Mohammed has urged President Bola Tinubu to revisit the 2002 International Court of Justice, ICJ, ruling that ceded Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon.
Mohammed argued that revisiting the judgement is crucial to remedy the injustice faced by the former Nigerian citizens and loss of the region’s valuable oil and mineral resources.
The senior lawyer in a statement stressed that Nigeria has grounds to call for a ‘judicial revisit’ under special proceedings, noting that the country failed to present its best case during the original trial.
According to him, “Nigeria lost the case due to an unratified 1913 Anglo-German Agreement, which became the crux of the legal argument. Our failure to challenge it properly contributed to the unfavorable outcome.
“The Nigerian government failed to understand the point of argument on the expression, Rio del Rey, rather than Rio_dos’. It failed to argue that Germany did not expressly demarcate the area of litigation in Bakassi peninsula before ceding it in the alleged treaty to Anglophone Britain.
He highlighted that the 1913 treaty shifted the boundary between Nigeria and Cameroon from Rio del Rey River to Akpa Yafe River, pushing the disputed Bakassi Peninsula into Cameroon.
“Nigeria did not adequately argue that the treaty failed to establish who the first occupants of Bakassi were, adding that this failure overlooked crucial questions of native land rights,” he said.
Drawing on the African customary law, Mohammed said “the philosophy of land in Africa distinguishes between physical land and its intangible benefits. Nigeria should have emphasized this distinction, especially in the context of colonial treaties.”
He blamed technical blunders, particularly from the Surveyor-General’s Office, for further weakening the case.
Citing the possibility of legal recourse, Mohammed pointed out that the ICJ allows for the revision of judgments under Article 61 of its statute if new facts emerge that were previously unknown to both the court and the parties involved.
“If vital facts were not considered in the original decision, Nigeria can apply for a revision of the judgment. Such an application would need to demonstrate that these facts could potentially overturn the previous ruling,” the lawyer added.
Referencing relevant international case law, Mohammed mentioned several instances where countries successfully sought revision of ICJ’s judgements, including disputes involving Tunisia, Libya and Bosnia.
He encouraged Nigeria to adopt a similar approach, assembling a team of experienced legal minds to critically examine the Bakassi case and pursue a revisit.
