Regime Compliance And Boundary Disputes: Nigeria–Cameroun Debacle Over Bakassi Peninsula

Abstract

The study was to determine Nigeria’s adherence to the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the Green Tree Agreement on the boundary dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon over Bakassi Peninsula. The research intended to investigate whether Nigeria’s compliance to the two regimes was predicated on the personal interest of the then president or the interest to secure a permanent seat in the Security council of the United Nations. The method adopted for the study was the survey design through questionnaire and Chi-square. Although the boundary crisis which may have snowballed into a fratricidal war was nib in the bud through conflict management regimes by the ICJ. It objective of the study aimed at whether Nigeria complied to the regimes due to the interest of the then president and its aspiration to secure a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council. It was concluded that above factors were contributory to Nigerian compliance to the regimes in the settlement of the dispute, by demobilizing soldiers and lowering of the Nigerian flag. The study recommended among others that the option of resettlement of the displaced people of Bakassi was preferable to declaring war.