Bakassi: The Nigerian Withdrawal Begins

A Nigerian soldier lowers the Nigerian flag while two Cameroonian soldiers hoist the country's flag, signifing the transfer of authority of the Bakassi Peninsula to the Cameroonian government in Archibong.

Nigerian defense staff chief Martin Luther Agwai, left, shake hands with his counterpart the Cameroonian chief of defense staff Meka Rene Claude.



Cameroon gendarmes march in to occupy Archibong, a disputed area of southern Bakassi Peninsula, Nigeria, Monday, Aug. 14, 2006.

Locals wave goodbye to a Nigerian army soldier who leaves Archibong, a disputed area of southern Bakassi Peninsula.

And life in Bakassi goes on...

Photos courtesy of Pius Utomi Ekpei & George Osodi

Comments

[Ma Mary]

These are not Cameroun gendarmes, who wear red berets, but the Cameroun army, the green beret guys - just a factoid, for accuracy. My Nigerian friends should get that straight. Gendarmes are a kind of military police that specializes in pushing civilians around. Why they are needed when there is already a police force is one of those irrational things adopted from the colonizer, back from the days when the short dictator Napoleon needed his own personal police force in order to hang on to power.

More importantly, when do the human rights abuses and random shootings resume?

[bwemba]

these guys are army men indeed. not gendarmes.

anyway let's get back to where we were before that crazy man sani Abacha starts all this mess.
I am from the mungo and I have always seen nigerians aroun especially biafra people this frontier thing is not that important. ahh you said oil and fish well maybe...

[Lloney Monono]

There was once a time when no lines on paper divided people... But before you think back that far, ask yourself if anyone would have bothered, where it not that the area was rich in natural resource? I am happy to see we get back what rightfully belonged to us... Again I ask myself what next for the Bakassi people ? 11 huts. 1 dirt track... There's a wide scope for development...

[julius]

I want to congratulate the inhabitants of Bakassi peninisula on acquiring their new second class citizenship. Well first things first, they better start learning french before the colonial administrator arrives.

[Amin]

••• And soldiers weep as Nigeria’s flag is lowered

By Kingsley Omonobi who was in Bakassi

“WE dey go-o, jeje; we dey go-o, jeje. Bakassi we don go o, jeje; we don go o, jeje. Cameroon we dey go o, jeje, we dey go-o jeje. Everybody we dey go, jeje, we dey go-o, jeje.”

With these solemn but painful songs which reverberated across the town of Archibong surrounded by East and West Atabong as well as Abana, angry soldiers of the Nigerian Defence Forces made their last journey out of the oil-rich Bakassi peninsular located on an expanse of island measuring 3, 072 square metres on August 14, 2006.
....
http://www.vanguardngr.com/articles/2002/cover/august06/19082006/f219082006.html

[tina ugoagha]

Am particularly parthetic about tthe way my fellow nigerians are ben treated because of early colonial greediness on partitioning of africa.you can all see how the young and old are crying and swearing because of land deprivation as a result of acquiring territory thereby disintegrating the entire african neighbourhood.
what moe can we say or do than to give the real owners of the land their property.
they should be taken to a more restful environment with patriotic care.

[Fai]

Why Nigerians are crying about harassment by Camerounian Gendermes is because of the freedom that exists in their country. Harassment is a common feature in the day to day life of Camerounians that they have stopped seeing it as abnormal. In Caeroun, the longest one can travel on the highway without being checked by Gendermes is 20 kms. In Nigeria, one can travel by bus from Kano in the extreme north to Lagos at the coast and back without being harassed by the police.
Who even knows what benefit the Camerounian populace is going to reap from the wealth to be tapped from Bakassi? Nigerians can cry because they mean something their government. The citizens are nothing to the Cameroon government.

[omene erhi]

All over africa nigeria is known for her solidarity for african causes and our sacrifices for strangers in afica we nevertheless consider to be our brethren is undeniable from the moral and finacial support for the anti apartheid struggles in south africa to helping to bring peace in liberia and sierra leone .yet what to we get in return?increasing reports of anti nigeria sentiments and actions all over the continents .a word of warning to all you ingrates. that we instinctively like to help does not mean we are fools.

[al-fallujah]

Africans stop fighting the white man's wars. let's live in peace and prosperity