Efik Monarch, Angry over Bakassi Cession, Seeks Independence from Nigeria

The Efik nation, a traditional monarchy in the southeastern corner of Nigeria which dates to pre-colonial times, has said that it intends to secede from Nigeria, mostly because of anger over last year’s cession of the Bakassi Peninsula to neighboring Cameroon, where Efiks also live.

High Chief Eyo Bassey Eyo-Cobham, chairman of the Eburutu Royal Fraternity Forum, made the announcement at a press conference in Calabar, Nigeria, on June 23rd.  He also cited “undue government interference in Efik kingship,” in the words of one press report, and suspicions that the central government in Abuja is planning on handing even more Efik land to Cameroon.  The current obong (prince or traditional ruler, sometimes translated king) of the Efik city-state at Akwa Akpa (“Old Calabar,” in Nigeria) is Basso Ekpo Bassey II (a.k.a. Ekpo Abasi Otu), who took the throne in 2008.  The larger Calabar (a.k.a. Kalabari) Kingdom, which includes Efiks but is dominated by the Ijaw ethnic group, is headed by Theophilus J. T. Princewill, who became King Amachree XI in 2002 (though Amachree’s rule has been in recent years troubled by competing claims).

Basso Ekpo Bassey II’s coronation in 2008

Nigeria’s Cross River State administered the disputed Bakassi Peninsula until the Nigerian and Cameroonian governments agreed in 2002 to abide by an eventual ruling on the overlap by the United Nations’ International Court of Justice (I.C.J.).  The I.C.J. decided in favor of Cameroon, and in 2006 Nigeria formally ceded the area, to the anger of Efiks who proceeded to declare a Democratic Republic of Bakassi.  In this, they had allies in both the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCAPO), a group fighting for the independence of the formerly British-administered parts of Cameroon—plus Bakassi—and an Ogoni autonomist group in Nigeria called the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).  That declaration never got any traction, since the Cameroonian government cracks down much harder on separatist talk than Nigeria’s does.  In 2012, the Bakassi dispute was rekindled as the ten-year deadline for Nigeria to appeal the I.C.J. decision was allowed to lapse, prompting Efik activists to accuse Nigeria of abandoning their kinsmen in Bakassi to the Francophone-dominated Cameroonian regime.  In that same year (as reported at the time in this blog), the Efik obong openly advocated accepting an invitation to join Southern Cameroons separatists to push for an independent Ambazonia straddling the border.

This map shows the Efik ethnolinguistic group (included here with Ibibio)
in relation to the Igbo (here “Ibo”) and Ijaw peoples.

Regarding the Bakassi cession, High Chief Eyo-Cobham told reporters at the recent press conference, “With such developments and other oppressive acts and tendencies of the Nigerian State, we the Efik Eburutu people say, ‘Enough is Enough,’ and have decided to take our destinies in our hands peacefully by pulling out of Nigeria. Our peaceful aims and objectives of self-determination for full autonomy are in tandem with Articles 1, 3-21 of the United Nations Charter of which the Federal Republic of Nigeria is a signatory.”

Amachree XI, king of Calabar: is he as separatist as the Efik obong?

In an official statement, the monarchy said that the Nigeria has, in one way or another, “turned us [the Efik] into punching bags socially, economically, and politically.”

The Bakassi Peninsula, in the words of the statement, “was an integral part of Efik Eburutu Kingdom as shown in all available records” and “was secretly and heartlessly expunged from Nigerian map in October 1960, filed in United Nations and African Union (A.U.) secretariats and ceded in 1975 to Cameroun without the consent and knowledge of its owners—the kings and chiefs of Efiks of Calabar and Bakassi.  This action has demonstrated that our people are not wanted in Nigeria, and as a people, we do not want to belong to Cameroun.  The effect of this ceding has brought untold pain and sufferings to Efik Eburutu people.  With this, the spirit of our ancestors who were, as it were, buried in the now ceded territory are roaming, refusing to be appeased.”

Efik protesters angry about the Bakassi cession

It is not clear if King Amachree XI has taken a position on this latest statement—i.e., whether this latest move is an Efik initiative only or if it has the support of the larger Calabar Kingdom of which, in a sense, it is traditionally a part.  But it comes at a time of increasing fragility for Nigerian unity.  The Igbo-dominated Biafra separatist movement, which includes Cross River State and other traditional Calabar territories in its claim, has remained active in recent years, the Adamawa monarchy in east-central Nigeria—which also straddles today’s border with Cameroon, but farther north—agitated for separatism earlier this year (as reported at the time in this blog), and the radical Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram has been waging a brutal insurgency for years, killing thousands, in Nigeria’s north and has in recent weeks managed to control a large part of Borno State.

A proposed flag for “Bakassi Free State”

[For those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with my forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas.  The book, which contains dozens of maps and over 500 flags, is now in the layout phase and should be on shelves, and available on Amazon, by early fall 2014.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even though you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook.]

Related posts from this blog:

• “Nigeria’s Adamawa Kingdom Invokes Sovereignty, Hints at Unification with Kindred in Cameroon” (March 2014)
• “Biafra Bikers Rejoice: Igbo May Not Have Their Own Nation, but They Have License Plates” (Feb. 2014)
• “Nigeria’s Boko Haram Warlord Abubakar Shekau Reported Dead from Gun Battle” (Aug. 2013)
• “Bakassian Border Survey Team Scatters; More Boko Haram Carnage: Nigeria Update” (Nov. 2012)
• “Nigerian Troops Massacre Civilians, Boko Haram Church Suicide Bombing, Kalabari-Bayelsa Border Row, Biafra Abductions: Nigeria Separatism Update” (Nov. 2012)
• “Hundreds Arrested as Biafra Zionists Declare Independence, Former Dictator Nixes Boko Haram Negotiations, More Northern Carnage” (Nov. 2012)
• “Senator Ensnared in Boko Haram Scandal; Open Civil War in Potiskum; More Bakassi Fallout: Nigeria Separatism Update” (Oct. 2012)
• “Jonathan Lets Bakassi Appeal Window Close; Efik King Joins Cause with Ambazonian Separatists” (Oct. 2012)
• “Abuja Rallies, Cameroon Crackdown in Run-Up to Anniversary of Bakassi Cession; Ogoni Trials in Washington, Johannesburg; Achebe on Biafra: Nigeria Separatism Update” (Oct. 2012)
• “Southern Nigeria Splitting Apart Too as the Muslim North Burns” (Aug. 2012)
• “Ambazonian Separatists Focus on Bakassi Peninsula in New Push to Split Cameroon” (Aug. 2012)
• “10 Separatist Movements to Watch in 2012” (Dec. 2011)
• “Remembering Odumegwu Ojukwu: On Biafra and on an African Continent Riven by European Borders” (Nov. 2011)

Nigeria’s Adamawa Kingdom Invokes Sovereignty, Hints at Unification with Kindred in Cameroon

The king of Adamawa, one of the smaller ethnonational groups within Nigeria, added his voice to the strains pulling the country apart this week when he announced at a national conference that he had the right to take his kingdom out of Nigeria if he chose.  Muhammadu Barkindo Aliyu Musdaphar, the Lamido (king; also translated as “emir”) of Adamawa, said, in the midst of a debate over a procedural question, that he and the Adamawa kingdom had sovereignty that overrode Nigerian sovereignty, adding, “My people and the people of Adamawa have got somewhere to go.  I am the Lamido of Adamawa and my kingdom extends to Cameroon.  The larger part of my kingdom is in Cameroon.  Part of that kingdom is today called Adamawa State in Cameroon.  You see, if I run to that place, I will easily assimilate.”

The location of Adamawa state within Nigeria

Nigeria’s Adamawa state and Cameroon’s border one another.  The Adamawa are a mid-sized ethnic group by Nigerian standards, a predominantly-Muslim group in the eastern Middle Belt region who speak a language related to Fulani, one of the dominant languages of the separatist north of Nigeria.

Muhammadu Barkindo Aliyu Musdaphar, king of Adamawa

Condemnation of the king’s words came from many quarters.  Chief Gani Adams, national coordinator of the Oodua People’s Congress (O.P.C.), a Yoruba autonomist movement, said, “I was highly disappointed by his statement; an eminent royal father like the Lamido of Adamawa ought not to make such a statement.  He is one of the most respected emirs we have in Nigeria today.  ...  I seize this opportunity to appeal to the royal fathers, including the emir, to watch their statements.  Nobody should threaten the unity of Nigeria.  ...  We, the Yoruba people, want to remain in Nigeria, but we shouldn’t be threatened.”

But a spokesman for the Northern Elders Forum (N.E.F.) voiced support for the way the king expressed his frustration with the procedures at the annual National Conference.

The flag of the Kingdom of Adamawa.  If they declare independence,
they really might want to think about spicing this up a little bit.

Though Nigeria is riven by Biafran (Igbo), Ogoni, and other autonomy and independence movements, as well as a brutal Islamist insurgency in the north which threatens to divide the country permanently, it is rare for one of the scores of traditional kingdoms in the multiethnic country to claim sovereignty on a monarchical basis.  One exception today is the Calabar Kingdom, farther south along the Nigerian–Cameroonian border, where Efik separatism has been stoked by a border dispute between the two countries over the Bakassi Peninsula and an insurgency by the Ambazonian or Southern Cameroons peoples of the formerly Anglophone portions of Cameroon.

King Barkindo with throne and scepter

[For those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with my forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas.  The book, which contains dozens of maps and over 500 flags, is now in the layout phase and should be on shelves, and available on Amazon, by early fall 2014.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even though you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook.]

Cameroon Takes Over Bakassi, Dashing Ambazonian and Efik Nationalist Hopes

Up went the Cameroonian flag over the Bakassi Peninsula on Wednesday, to the dismay of separatists and irredentists.

After decades of controversy and conflict, the Republic of Cameroon on August 21st formally took control of the disputed Bakassi Peninsula on its border with the Federal Republic of Nigeria.  This closes the door on the hopes of Nigerian nationalist irredentists, separatists in the peninsula and in the wider “Southern Cameroons” region, and members of the Efik ethnic group whose communities are riven by the international border.

Nigeria had been administering the peninsula since independence when, in 2002, the United Nations’ International Court of Justice (I.C.J.) ruled that the territory would belong to Cameroon.  Both sides had agreed to abide by the I.C.J. decision, whatever it might be, and in 2006 Nigeria ceded the peninsula, angering nationalists.  The issue lay dormant until last year, when a 10-year period during which Nigeria could contest the decision came was nearing its close (developments which were covered extensively in this blog).  Nationalist critics of Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, cried “capitulation,” members of the Efik ethnic group, which straddles the border, demanded that displaced Efiks in Nigeria be allowed to resettle in the peninsula, and Efik nationalists on both sides of the border called for an independent state which would revive the Efiks’ precolonial Calabar Kingdom.

The Calabar Kingdom is still a functioning ceremonial monarchy,
though the Nigerian–Cameroonian border bisects its traditional lands

On the Cameroonian side, this southwestern region of the country had for decades been home to a separatist movement in formerly British-ruled areas.  The original German colony of Kamerun had been divided between the United Kingdom and France after Germany lost the First World War.  At the time of decolonization, the southern part of the British chunk (“Southern Cameroons”) voted to join the newly independent French portion as the Republic of Cameroon, while the predominantly-Muslim chunk of the British sliver voted to join Nigeria.  But Southern Cameroonians, culturally distinct and used to using English rather than French as their lingua franca, chafed under a new 1972 constitution under which the Cameroonian dictatorship erased all regional autonomy.  Separatists declared an independent Republic of Ambazonia in the former Southern Cameroons in 1999 and in 2006 declared a Republic of Ambazania (note slight difference in spelling) which was to include the Bakassi Peninsula as well.  This declaration had the support of displaced Efik and other Bakassians on the Nigerian side, but it had little effect on the ground.  (To complicate matters, the areas on the Nigerian side of the border are part of a possibly future independent state envisioned by Igbo separatists—whose disastrously brief-lived Republic of Biafra in the 1960s included a restive Efik minority.)

But a 2012 declaration of independence by the Republic of Bakassi, though it involved only a radio-station tower on a tiny island off the peninsula’s coast, invited brutal reprisals by the Cameroonian military—not only against the Bakassian separatists but against Ambazonian/Ambazanian separatists more generally.

Separatists in Cameroon wave the flag of Ambazonia

But, declarations of independence aside, this is a time of reckoning for the estimated 90% of the peninsula’s 40,000-some residents who hold only Nigerian passports.  Instead of offering dual citizenship, as Bakassians demand, they are being told they must apply for foreign-resident permits, as though they were immigrants.  This is hardly a sporting attitude on the part of the Cameroonian victors in the dispute, and it is likely to inflame tensions.  While the rest of Nigeria is riven by separatism as well, many fear that the transition to Cameroonian rule might be the beginning, rather than the end, of the dispute over the Bakassi Peninsula.

[You can read more about Bakassi, Ambazonia, and many other separatist and new-nation movements, both famous and obscure, in my new book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas just published by Litwin Books under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements and Aspirant Nations, from Abkhazia to Zanzibar.  The book, which contains 46 maps and 554 flags (or, more accurately, 554 flag images), is available for order now on Amazon.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even if you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook and see this interview for more information on the book.]

Bakassian Border Survey Team Scatters; More Boko Haram Carnage: Nigeria Update, 18-24 November 2012

Lawmaker, Pastor, Police Inspector Gunned Down in Wave of Boko Haram Hits.  Police in Nigeria reported on November 18th the assassination of Ibrahim Abba Garko, a legislator in the Kano State assembly, who was gunned down in a motorcycle drive-by shooting in the city of Kano.  He died on the spot, and two companions were wounded.  He was a member of the country’s ruling party, the People’s Democratic Party (P.D.P.).  The following day, a 70-year-old Christian pastor was shot and killed in front of his family by suspected Boko Haram members in Maiduguri, capital of Borno State in the northeast.  The minister, the Rev. Ilaisha (other reports say Elisha) Kabura, was on his way to conduct a service for a Church of Christ in Nations congregation.  He had received Boko Haram death threats before.  The same day, a police inspector, Babangida Danbabo, was shot and killed on his way home from prayers at a mosque in Bauchi, in Bauchi State.

Rioting between Christians, Muslims in Nigerian Middle Belt Kills 4.  Four people were killed in street warfare between Christians and Muslims in east-central Nigeria on November 18th after a Muslim in the town of Ibi, in Taraba State, refused to submit to a checkpoint set up by a Christian vigilante group.  The checkpoint was one of many set up in the town as a way of keeping Muslims from approaching churches, in the wake of a barrage of church bombings by the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram in recent months.  Both churches and mosques were burned down in the rioting that ensued, and the military was sent into the town to keep order.  Taraba State is in the east of the region known as the Middle Belt, where Muslims and Christians live side by side.  Also, in the central Middle Belt state of Nasarawa, seven people, including a seven-year-old boy were killed on November 21st in rioting between the Koro and Eggon ethnic groups in the town of Agyaragu.  At least 10 people were injured and 15 houses burned down.

Rioting in Ibi

Military Operation in Northeast Nigeria Kills Boko Haram Commander, Others.  A joint military and police operation in Nigeria, including the anti-terrorist Joint Task Force (J.T.F.), state security forces, and even the air force, launched a major offensive on November 21st against the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State in northeastern Nigeria, resulting in the death of a Boko Haram commander, Ibn Saleh Ibrahim.  Several other Boko Haram fighters were also killed, according to the military.  The following day in Maiduguri, Boko Haram members killed three children—ages 5, 7, and 12—in their mother’s presence, amid a total of five similar murders that day.  The children’s father was Aduju Zubairu, a member of Nigeria’s federal State Security Service (S.S.S.).

Reportedly Escaped Boko Haram Prisoner Turns Out to Be in Hospital.  In Nigeria, media reported this week that the country’s inspector general of police, Mohammed Abubakar, had informed President Goodluck Jonathan that the media reports of the escape from police custody of the Boko Haram commander Sani Mohammed (a.k.a. Mohammed Sani) on November 8th (as reported earlier in this blog) were a false story and that in fact the suspect was sick and in a hospital.  He had been arrested in January 2012 along with another suspect, Bakir Sokoto.

Bakassians Disrupt Nigerian-Cameroonian Border Survey Team, Protesting Cession.  Demonstrators from the Bakassi Peninsula disrupted the activities of a surveying team marking the newly negotiated boundary between Nigeria and Cameroon on November 21st and 22nd, over what they call a betrayal by the Nigerian government, which last month intentionally let pass a last opportunity to contest an International Court of Justice (I.C.J.) ruling ceding Bakassi to Cameroon.  The Joint Technical Team was made up of United Nations, Nigerian, and Cameroonian officials.  The demonstrators carried placards and prevented the team from reaching the site.  After the disruptions, the U.N. temporarily suspended the surveying project.  See a recent article in this blog detailing the Bakassi dispute.

[For those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with my forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas.  The book, which contains dozens of maps and over 500 flags, is now in the layout phase and should be on shelves, and available on Amazon, by early fall 2014.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even though you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook.]

Senator Ensnared in Boko Haram Scandal; Open Civil War in Potiskum; More Bakassi Fallout: Nigeria Separatism Update, 21-27 October 2012

Boko Haram and the Nigerian military have left the city of Potiskum in ruins.  (See article below.)

Islamist Terrorist Arrested in Home of Senator from Nigeria’s Ruling Party.  A member of the radical Islamist terrorist network Boko Haram was arrested inside a senator’s home in Maidiguri, capital of Borno State in Nigeria’s far northeast, by agents of the federal anti-terrorist Joint Task Force (J.T.F.).  The senator, Ahmed Zanna of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (P.D.P.), when confronted by media, said that the suspect, Shuaibu Mohammed Bama, was not arrested in his house, but he admitted that the man was his nephew (sister’s son).  Later, he admitted that it was indeed his home but that he had said it was not because it technically belonged to the former Borno governor, Sen. Ali Modu Sheriff.  Zanna has been accused in the past of supporting Boko Haram.  He told an interviewer, “He beats up my children; he abuses my friends.  He came to my house, so I sent him away.  That was about a year ago.  And for whatever reason I don’t know, he came to my house last week and I said he should leave the house.  Sometime ago, he even threatened to kill his mother.  So, the mother was not even feeling comfortable living with him.  And he narrated that to me.  That is why I also do not want him to be near me.  I don’t know him to be a Boko Haram member.  Never, never, I do not know him to be a member of Boko Haram.”

For an American senator, this would be a perfectly acceptable backdrop,
but for a Nigerian senator accused of ties to terrorists it maybe wasn’t the smartest move.

Street Battles Continue to Rage between Military and Boko Haram in Potiskum.  The death toll in the street battles that began October 17th in Potiskum, in northeastern Nigeria’s Yobe State, has risen to at least 23, according to hospital morgues, though details coming out of the barricaded city this week were sketchy.  Some put the death toll at 31, with eight killed on October 20th, including a school principal.  Days after the fighting between police, military, and the Boko Haram terrorist network, buildings were still in ruins from fires that some say were started by Nigerian soldiers.  But as of October 20th there was still violence, with unidentified militants storming the home of a customs officer in Potiskum and killing him and his son.  On October 22nd, a curfew was imposed on the already locked-down city.

In other violence in northern Nigeria, nine bullet-riddled bodies were found in Adamawa State this week.  Witnesses say the nine were executed by Nigerian soldiers hunting for the perpetrators of a roadside bomb four days earlier.  On October 19th, suspected Boko Haram militants attacked a market in Borno State, killing a construction worker from China and injuring three other civilians.  A middle-aged man was set on fire by Boko Haram members in Maiduguri, in Borno State, this week, and in the same city on the morning of October 26th Boko Haram members killed three young people in front of their parents.

Nigerian Troops Foil Raising of (New?!) Boko Haram Flag in Damaturu.  The federal anti-terrorist Joint Task Force (J.T.F.) has prevented members of Boko Haram from raising their yellow, white, and red striped “national flag” in Damaturu, in Nigeria’s Yobe State.  The militia had traditionally sought only the extension of shari’a (Islamic law) from the northern, Muslim-dominated Nigerian states where it is in force to the Christian-dominated southern half of the country, but increasingly there is talk of a separate nation, with Damaturu as its capital.  This, of course, is exciting news for us vexillophiles at Springtime of Nations.  But I’ll be damned if I can find an image of this new flag anywhere.  The news report also mentioned that the tricolor (vertical? horizontal?) features a “weapons of mass destruction” emblem (a nuke?).  Here, anyway (I found it online here), is a flag of an earlier (pre–Boko Haram), now rival proposal for the flag of an Islamic Republic of Arewa (Arewa being the name for ‘north’ in Hausa, northern Nigeria’s main language):

Readers of this blog are enthusiastically encouraged to send me any information they might have on this new Boko Haram flag.

There are also, incidentally, several Hausa and Fulani ethnic flags.  This, a Hausa one, is my favorite:

... but I don’t expect Boko Haram to opt for anything so classy.

Nigerian Court Dismisses Bakassian Lawsuit against Boundary Commission.  A high court in Abuja, Nigeria, tossed out on October 24th a lawsuit (described last week in this blog) brought by indigenous people from the disputed Bakassi Peninsula which faulted Nigeria’s National Boundary Commission (N.B.C.) for demarcating the finalized boundary between Nigeria and Cameroon without consulting the people affected.  Earlier this month, the Nigerian government allowed the window of appeal to close on a 2002 International Court of Justice (I.C.J.) ruling transferring sovereignty of the peninsula to Cameroon.  The judge ruled that the plaintiffs were pleading a political case, not a legal one. 

Nigerian Terrorists Assassinate Mayor in Northern Cameroon.  It was revealed this week that earlier this month a deputy mayor in the Republic of Cameroon’s Région de l’Extrême-Nord (Far North Region) was assassinated by the terrorist network Boko Haram after a string of threats.  Reports said that the third deputy mayor of the town of Makary, Abba Djidda Alahdji, had been targeted because of ties to a police commissioner in neighboring Nigeria, where Boko Haram is waging a deadly Islamist insurgency.  He was gunned down on October 5th by militants who followed him home from prayers.  This represents one of the first major incursions by the group outside Nigeria, though Nigerian intelligence has said that Boko Haram uses areas across the border in Cameroon as a safe haven.  Makary is in the predominantly-Muslim far north of Cameroon—otherwise a majority-Christian nation—near where Cameroon and Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State (Boko Haram’s center of activity) meet the Republic of Chad.  The Fulani, who dominate northern Nigeria, are a major presence in the town.

[For those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with my forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Litwin Books under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements and Aspirant Nations, from Abkhazia to Zanzibar.  (That is shorter than the previous working title.)  The book, which contains 46 maps and 554 flags (or, more accurately, 554 flag images), will be on shelves and available on Amazon on March 1, 2015.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even though you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook and see this special announcement for more information on the book.]

Jonathan Lets Bakassi Appeal Window Close; Efik King Joins Cause with Ambazonian Separatists: Nigeria Update, 7-13 October 2012

Secession of the Bakassi Peninsula is in the air again as the deadline for appealing its cession to Cameroon is allowed to pass, and the Efik king and other leaders begin envisioning a Bakassi Republic carved out of pieces of both Nigeria and Cameroon.  Read on ...

Appeal Window Closes, Angering Efik and Others in Nigeria.  Despite a last-minute lawsuit by Bakassian activists, Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, allowed an October 10th deadline to pass, thus closing the window of opportunity for appealing a 2002 ruling by the International Court of Justice (I.C.J.) ceding the Bakassi Peninsula to the Republic of Cameroon.  Nine Bakassians in Cross River State in southeastern Nigeria had filed a lawsuit this week against the federal government over the question of sovereignty over the disputed peninsula.  The plaintiffs, a group called the Free Bakassi Association, asked the court to void the Green Tree Agreement of 2006, in which Nigeria acquiesced to the I.C.J. decision, and to order the Nigerian government to retake the disputed area by any means necessary.  But on October 8th, Mohammed Bello Adoke, the Nigerian minister of justice, announced that the deadline would be allowed to pass without appeal.  But Adoke promised to press Cameroon on the rights of Bakassians and other Nigerians living in Cameroonian territory.

Betrayed Bakassians Mull an Efik Republic to Straddle Nigerian-Cameroonian Border.  As the Nigerian government allowed the window on appealing the Bakassi cession to close on October 10th, furious Bakassians on both sides of the (now utterly officially demarcated) Nigerian–Cameroonian border took to the streets to protest.  Liyel Imoke, governor of Nigeria’s Cross River State—where many of the Efik ethnic minority live, including those displaced from Bakassi years ago when the territory was first transferred—pleaded for calm.  More pointedly, supporters of the once-sovereign Efik kingdom marched on the governor’s office, and Ekpo Abasi Otu, the obong of Calabar—the current hereditary ruler of the Efik-dominated Calabar Kingdom—said on the 10th, according to media, “that the Efik were considering the invitation by the people of Southern Cameroon to form a republic as the Federal Government [of Nigeria] had sold their ancestral land to Cameroon.  The coordinator of the Save Bakassi Group, Maurice Ekong, said that this was “the beginning of a long struggle for sovereignty.”  Also in Cross River, Cletus Obun, who heads the Cameroon Border Communities Association (C.B.C.A.), said this week that his group will petition the United Nations for a plebiscite and “will embark on serious mobilisation across local government areas bordering Cameroon in collaboration with the Efiks in Bakassi and the Southern Cameroon for an independent state of Abazonia.”  Efik and other ethnic groups in southwestern Cameroon, including many in the Bakassi Peninsula and many in the areas that used to be the British-ruled Southern Cameroons colony before a merger with Cameroon, newly independent from France, have been pushing for decades for a separate nation, to be called either Ambazonia or Ambazania (as opposed to Obun’s “Abazonia” (a new spelling, or a typo?) above).  Efik activists in August declared an island off the coast of the Bakassi Peninsula the “Republic of Bakassi.”

The obong of Calabar

See an earlier article in this blog with a full discussion of the Bakassi and Ambazonia questions.

Meanwhile, sources are reporting that the Cameroonian government’s security forces are cracking down in Bakassi and Efik in Nigeria have been unable to contact relatives on the Cameroonian side of the border.

Jonathan Offered Okah Amnesty for Blaming Bombs on Political Enemies, Court Hears.  In the trial of the accused Ogoni separatist bomber Henry Okah, which began last week in Johannesburg, South Africa (as reported at the time in this blog), the court screened a 2009 interview with the Qatar-based Al Jazeera news network, shot after he’d been granted amnesty by the Nigerian government, in which he said, “There are still thousands and thousands and thousands who are prepared to fight and continue fighting,” adding, “I don’t look like I am contributing to violence; I am participating in fighting for my rights.”  When asked if he was repentant for past violence, he said, “I’m not.  Why should I be?  What we want is our land.  ...  I think in a few months, if government doesn’t address the real demands ... very soon, there will be a resumption of violence.”  Okah, alleged leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), is being accused of masterminding a wave of car-bombings in Nigeria in the year following that interview.  In another interview heard by the court, Okah claimed that after the 2010 car bombings a representative of Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Jonathan, phoned him in South Africa and asked him to get MEND to retract its claim of responsibility so that Jonathan could “blame the attacks on northerners who are trying to fight against him to come back as president, and if this was done, I was not going to have any problems with the South African government.”  Okah refused the offer, he said in the interview, and a few hours later was arrested.

The Ogoni flag

New Igbo Youth Movement Says It Lured 1,000 Away from MASSOB.  The head of publicity for a new Igbo group in southeastern Nigeria, the Association of Igbo Youths (AIYO), registered in 2007, said on October 5th that at least 1,000 members have fled a longer established group, MASSOB, to join AIYO, citing as a cause that MASSOB does not look at those that have been imprisoned, widowed, or orphaned as the result of MASSOB violence.  MASSOB stands for Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra.  AIYO, by contrast, according to the publicity head, Charles Chikeli, is a “youth vanguard” which promotes “peace, love, and oneness of the Igbo in accordance with the laws of the country.”

AS MANY AS 98 DEAD IN NORTH NIGERIA INCLUDE 30 SHOT BY “BERSERK” SOLDIERS.

On October 6th, battles raged for half an hour in Damaturu, capital of Yobe State in northern Nigeria, between the Islamist insurgency group Boko Haram and the federal government’s anti-terrorist Joint Task Force (J.T.F.), but there were no reports of casualties.  Six Boko Haram fighters were captured and arrested, some with the help of the citizenry.

Around the same time, two people in the village of Dogon Kuka, in northern Yobe, were killed when unknown gunmen opened fire on them.

A bomb blast near a television studio in Jalingo, capital of Taraba State in Nigeria’s mixed-Christian-and-Muslim east-central Middle Belt region, injured eight people on the night of October 6-7, including a woman and five children.  Boko Haram is suspected.

On October 7th, also in northern Yobe State, Nigerian troops killed approximately 30 suspected Boko Haram fighters in a battle that lasted several hours.  Among the dead, according to an army spokesman, was “the notorious, one-eyed Bakaka, the field commander of Boko Haram in Damaturu and a close associate of Abubakar Shekau,” the apparent leader of the terror network.  Hospitals also reported five uniformed men among the dead, presumably government soldiers.  Ten insurgents were arrested, and a gigantic cache of weapons and other equipment was recovered.

The “one-eyed” warlord Bakaka, recently neutralized—
though he seems to have full stereoscopic vision in this photo

On October 8th, in Maiduguri, capital of Borno State, an afternoon bombing of a military convoy killed 20 civilians and burned 50 homes.  An army lieutenant and six other military personnel were also apparently killed in the explosion, which prompted Nigerian troops in the area to “go berserk” in an impoverished neighborhood, opening fire, according to witnesses, and mowing down and killing 30 people that included civilians as well as those later identified as Boko Haram fighters.  They also set over 100 buildings, including houses and shops, and 35 vehicles ablaze.  Since military sources would not confirm any details of the alleged rampage—and claim no one other than two soldiers were injured in the initial blast—it is possible that there was only one wave of fires, attributed by different sources to either soldiers or the terrorist bomb.  One resident said, “The atrocities going on in Maiduguri is worse than what obtains in Somalia.  People are being killed and their wealth destroyed by the soldiers.”  In Kano, in north-central Nigeria, two police officers were shot and killed by gunmen on motorcycles on October 9th while protecting medical workers administering polio vaccine door to door.  Police have arrested eight suspected Islamist militants in connection with that incident.

Two days later, also in Kano, two officers with the Nigerian Federal Road Safety Commission (F.R.S.C.) were shot and killed by unknown gunmen, presumed to be Boko Haram.  An additional officer was injured.

[Also, for those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with a forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas.  Look for it in spring 2013.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.]