The Sun: Thank you Mola Litumbe for granting this interview to The SUN newspaper. Of late you have been carrying around what I would call the Southern Cameroons gospel. What effect is the message having?
Mola Njoh: Well, like any evangelist and I can do no more than say I am a political evangelist, I preach the sermon in the hope that people who listen to it would change their ways and be converted. In the particular case of Southern Cameroons, I have been specific on the fact that when La Republique du Cameroun got its independence on 1st January 1960, I insist that no part of British Cameroons was included in the territorial boundaries of La Republique du Cameroun.
This is a known fact. Now La Republique du Cameroun became a member of the United Nations in September 1960. The United Nations has a written constitution called the Charter and that Charter prescribes in Article 102 that any member of the United Nations who wishes to go into a relationship with another territory, the terms of that relationship have got to be reduced in writing and a copy of the agreement provided at the secretariat of the United Nations, which is the registry of all independent countries around the world. Failing to do that, that arrangement cannot be cited before any organ of the United Nations.
Now, the International Court of Justice is one of such organs, so La Republique du Cameroun cited Nigeria over Bakassi which is located in Southern Cameroons and in fact succeeded in having the matter heard by the ICJ, an organ of the UN without first establishing that Bakassi is in a territory which had legally been united with La Republique du Cameroun in accordance with Article 102 of the Charter. There is no such treaty of union between Southern Cameroons. So if Nigeria were only to ask La Republique du Cameroun that the court has pointed out that the indigenes of Bakassi voted as Southern Cameroonians on 11th February, 1961 to determine where their country should go either to Nigeria or La Republique du Cameroun and they in turn explain to Nigeria that clearly you have nothing to do in Bakassi because it was not part of your territory then because you had been independent the previous 1st October, 1960 when Britain handed you independence.
src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js">
Mola Njoh Litumbe's Interview by The Sun
Comments