Cognitive Existentialism and the Global Politics of State Survival: The Nigeria/Cameroun Bakassi Conflict

Abstract

This paper attempts to situate Nigeria’s capitulation to Cameroun in the Bakassi boundary conflict between the two nations within the context and logic of global politics driven by global states such as the United States of America, Great Britain, France and Germany. It makes a case for why and how a sub-regional war was averted within the Gulf of Guinea. The paper argued that although the crisis was a sub-regional inter-state boundary dispute which threatened to escalate into a sub-regional war within the Gulf of Guinea, it acquired a global stature within the context of the operational security architecture of AFRICOM that seeks to globalize security in the incipient second wave of neo-global governance. The crisis provided ample opportunity for the operationalization of the new geography of power in global politics, founded and driven by the mirror image of ‘cognitive existentialism’. The paper concludes that Obasanjo’s lowering of the Nigerian flag in Bakassi in the context of the new security architecture was fuelled more by the fears of an escalated anti-federal militant upsurge in the Niger Delta; the official records showing Bakassi as an oil axis; America’s incorporation of Bakassi into the Gulf of Guinea; the painful remembrance of the ugly Nigerian civil war experience; and America’s refusal to supply Nigeria arms in the event of a war with Cameroun, than by a global environment characterized by the low politics of environmental recreation, humanitarian intervention and the politics of human rights.

Keywords

Cognitive existentialism Nigeria Cameroun Bakassi Gulf of Guinea security

Introduction

The extraverted character of Nigeria’s foreign policy has been well documented elsewhere (Aluko, 1981; Jinadu, 2005; Nwoke, 2009; Ogwu, 2005; Osuntokun, 2005). Garba (1976), for instance, wrote: ‘…in all our dealings with international organizations, we are guided not by selfish national interest, but by a higher sense of responsibility and concern for countries (particularly in Africa) whose needs in some respect are greater than ours’ (cited in Ogwu, 1986: 101). Such regional images and self-perceptions derive from Nigeria’s size and population accounting for over a quarter of Africa, and its natural resources and economic potentials. Tempted by this endowment within the context of continental rivalry for regional leadership, Nigeria at independence adopted an Afro-centric foreign policy. This path was articulated as early as January 1960 by Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa when he affirmed that ‘Nigeria will have a wonderful opportunity to speak for the continent of Africa’ (cited in Ogwu, 1986: 101).

Subsequent pronouncements and the policy thrust of Nigerian leaders since independence point to Nigeria’s identification with the vision and aspirations of the weak nations predominantly domiciled in Africa. The vision and aspirations include: national self-determination; non-intervention in internal affairs of other states; collective security; peaceful settlement of disputes; sovereign equality of all nations; racial equality and a good neighbour policy. These policy thrusts are based on the principles and charter of the UN, the organization of African unity (OAU) and the doctrine of non-alignment to which Nigeria subscribed at independence in 1960. In addition, Africa has remained the focus of Nigeria’s foreign policy since independence, with a ‘concentric circle’ orientation in which Nigeria’s neighbours in West Africa, the African continent and the larger global community count. In the words of Idi Hong, Nigeria’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs:

Nigeria’s role in the establishment and sustenance of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) represents the clearest manifestation of her commitment to regional economic development and integration, as well as expression of the link between our economic development and our foreign policies. (Daniel, 2010: 88)

It is within this framework that Nigeria was later to find itself engulfed in a political boundary dispute whose seed was sown in the 1961 reunification of the Anglophone and Francophone Cameroun. This development followed a plebiscite that created an international boundary between Anglophone Cameroun and Nigeria (Idehen, 2008: 106). The Marua accord of 1975 between Nigeria and Cameroun which followed the boundary crisis was later considered by the Nigerian side as an act of bad fate which eventually questioned the credibility of the old Nigerian African mirror image and self-perception, against the backdrop of Nigeria’s economic strategic defence interest in the Bakassi.

The Nigeria/Cameroun (Bakassi) boundary dispute and subsequent Big Power intervention and resolution raised a number of issues in the context of the new global politics. The emergence of the new global order, which challenged western imperial capacity to consolidate the gains of the post-cold war order, and liberal hegemony over communism and socialism, has raised new economic and security challenges. These challenges have provoked the construction of new security architecture to contain terrorism and possible communist resurgence and rivalry in a new free world. In the new global environment, a world free of wars and conflict as well as founded on peace and democracy better promotes the progress desired by the capitalist trajectory. It was with this in mind that the Green Tree diplomacy in New York involving Cameroun and Nigeria was designed and articulated to avoid the outbreak of war in the sub-region. To give this peace project effect, the United Nations’ Secretary General Kofi Annan, as well as representatives of western interests (the United States, Britain, France and Germany), met with the Nigerian and Camerounian Heads of State in New York on 12 June 2006 to reinforce the International Court of Justice (ICJ) judgement that upheld the ceding of Bakassi to Cameroun on 10 October 2002. It is in the context of this ascendant paradigm that we must locate the resolution of the Nigerian/Camerounian conflict over Bakassi as outlined in the Green Tree Accord.

The willingness of the Nigerian authorities to co-operate was made possible by the timely intervention of the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan. Using the good offices of the Secretary General, a tripartite meeting involving Kofi Annan, Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Paul Biya of Cameroun was held. At the meeting, the two leaders made firm commitment not to go to war over the disputed territory. For the actualization of their diplomatic objective, they constituted a mixed commission chaired by a representative of the Secretary General, whose role was to facilitate and work out an acceptable formula for the implementation of the ICJ judgement (Imobighe, 2013: 205).

This paper seeks to examine the politics of the Green Tree Accord and Nigeria’s withdrawal from the Bakassi in the context of post-cold war global politics, characterized by cognitive existentialism. The objectives are: (a) to capture western interest in the axis as part of the AFRICOM project, which seeks to protect western oil interests in the sub-region of the Gulf of Guinea; and (b) to examine the basis of Nigeria’s capitulation to western pressure. This paper is organized in seven sections. Sections 1 and 2 present the introductory issues and framework of discourse, respectively. Section 3 discusses the prelude to the Bakassi drama. In sections 4 and 5, the crisis of the soft power hegemony and Cameroun, a French speaking West African neighbour, are also respectively discussed. The ‘Green Tree Accord’ and the imperial interest in Bakassi are discussed in section 6, while the conclusion, lowering the Nigerian flag in Bakassi, is presented in section 7.

Cognitive existentialism: a framework of discourse

Psychologists often relate the phenomena of displacement and ‘projection’ or selective perception to the concept of ‘national images’ in the analysis of international conflict. This selection process frequently introduces the distortions which underline ‘national images’ and most often accounts for unjustifiable foreign policies and military engagements between states in the international system. These images are rightly or wrongly formed through the educational system, folklore, news media and other channels of socialization. The concept of images as applied by Kelman simply means ‘the organized representation of an object in an individual’s cognitive system…the individual’s conception of what an object is like’ (Dougherty and Pfaltzgraff, 1981: 281)

While Kelman himself critically questioned the credibility of such pseudoscientific analogy which uncritically regards society as a psychological organism and therefore not relevant for analysis of inter-state conflict, Boulding (1959: 121–122) sees the decision making process as involving ‘the selection of a preferred portion in a contemporary field of choice’ derived from the decision maker’s image. This image is not simple but developed through messages received in the past and progressively accumulated as pieces of information capital. Nations do have banks of thinkers who are trained to aggregate national images. Boulding then made this important observation:

In the formation of the national images, however, it must be emphasized that impressions of nationality are formed mostly in childhood and usually in the family group. It would be quite fallacious to think of the images as being cleverly imposed on the mass by the powerful. If anything, the reverse is the case, the image is essentially a mass image, or what might be called a ‘folk image,’ transmitted through the family and the intimate face-to-face group, both in the case of the powerful and in the case of ordinary persons. Especially in the case of the old, long-established nations, the powerful share the mass image rather than impose it…. This is much less true in new nations which are striving to achieve nationality, where the family culture frequently does not include strong elements of national allegiance but rather stresses allegiance to religious ideas or to the families. (Boulding 1959: 120)

It is during this process that image massification and objectification are attained, though not without objection and resistance from the contending social forces within the state. Thus, a sociological transactional image, rather than the inherent psychological dynamics shared by few foreign policy elites, is implicated in the foreign policy image concept.

The foregoing controversy notwithstanding, national image or decision makers’ images are products of the cognitive process, be they distorted or selected. As products of the cognitive process, images over time tend to reflect the reality of the objects they have cognized. Images of the post-cold war era, therefore, will generally tend to perceive a digression from politics of deterrence, force capability, force correlation, war, insurgency and counter insurgency as well as military adventurism for hegemonic expansionism. Similarly, the post-cold war image is attracted to the process of low politics, such as politics of peace building, politics of global morality, politics of global justice, politics of human rights, politics of access, politics of democratization, politics of humanitarian intervention, politics of industrialism, politics of trade and resource transfer, politics of better life, politics of soft power deployment, etc. It cognizes the tenets and challenges of global politics: a new body of existential phenomena that teaches decision-makers the thrust of the new global mission. It is within the framework of low politics that we are to situate increased demand for inter-hemispheric resource transfer in favour of the south, rising western support for accountability, and capacity-building projects in the south to drive a new global order. Image is also expressed in western support for the war against AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and the Millennium Development Goal projects. Such post-cold war paradigm shifts are designed to promote globalization and stimulate capital flow across national boundaries. In addition, the framework also marks a shift from state securitization to human security under the broad platform of citizen diplomacy through which the citizen is at the centre of national security.

Thus, cognitive existentialism represents a paradigm shift from the mutual assured destruction and arms race that marked the cold war era to the pursuit of mutual sovereign existence that marks the soft power regime of post-cold war global politics. The avoidance of war, the warm embrace of peace as the defining character, and the challenge of the new world order threatened by terrorism, constitute the mission of the new global order.

Cognitive existentialism is not limited to the necessity of preserving a sovereign existence of state, it is also translated to the whole notion of survival and the existence of humanity, eco-system protection, the preservation of wildlife and the general protection and preservation of nature in its natural form. As a new paradigm, it seeks to inculcate and create a new psychology and a new man conscious of the creation, protection and preservation of humanity, its values and its essence.

Thus, the mirror image of war and destruction which guided decision-makers in foreign policy decision must pave the way for a new mirror image of peace and mutual existence in the post-cold war era. It is in such a mirror image that we are to capture America’s low rating of George Bush, following his military adventures in Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran, and the use of hot words. Western abhorrence, rejection and attack against the continuing Anglo-American intervention in this American-labelled ‘axis of the devil’ had far reaching implications for the failure of the Republicans in the 2008 presidential election.

The prelude to the Bakassi drama

The post-independence Nigeria–Cameroun relationship is marked by the claims and the counter claims over the oil rich Bakassi Peninsula by two West African countries that were ruled by the British and French imperial governments as colonial territories. While such boundary claims are not uncommon in post-colonial Africa, due primarily to an arbitrary boundary delineation project that divided related kins and kindreds while merging unrelated kindred into new nation states, the appropriation of Cameroun into British and German colonies and later into French and British colonies set the stage for a complex international conflict that was later to blossom into the Bakassi drama. The character of this drama was to acquire a new significance as the two related colonial states were ruled by different colonial powers. In this section of the paper, three phases of Nigeria’s loss of ownership of Bakassi – pre-colonial history of a lost ownership; the colonial history of a lost ownership and the post-independence history of a lost ownership, including how Bakassi slipped away – are discussed.

Pre-colonial history of a lost ownership

The Bakassi Peninsula, inhabited predominantly by Efik-speaking people of Calabar, has throughout history always sought the coastal settlements needed to tap fishery resources, settled mainly by about 30,000–40,000 Nigerians (Imobighe et al., 1988: 26). The territory, though previously a colony of Germany, was of no major interest to Cameroun, France, Britain, Germany and Nigeria until the discovery of oil in the area, especially in the 1970s.

French–British interest in Cameroun is a post-first World War phenomenon. Neither France nor Britain were original colonizers of Cameroun; Cameroun was initially a German colony, but following the circumstances surrounding the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, British forces composed of Nigerian colonial troops invaded German Cameroun in 1916.

Imobighe (2013) has pointed out that the dispute over the ownership of Bakassi has roots in the contradictory pre-colonial treaties which defined the demarcation of the German and British spheres of interest during the partition of Africa. He reported that based on oral evidence derived from the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) study of 1988, the British signed a treaty with the Obong of Calabar and his chiefs which not only put his domain under the British protectorate, but also contained a proscriptive clause that barred the British from alienating any part of the Obong’s domain to any other power. The second set relates to the agreements that derived from the series of Anglo-German negotiations between 1884 and 1886 which placed Rio de Rey as the boundary between their territories. As a result of the discovery that Rio de Rey was not a river but a channel, the alternative line drawn inland to the Cross River Rapids from the mouth of Rio de Rey channel placed Bakassi squarely on the Nigerian side (Imobighe, 2013: 208). Things started to change by 1913 when the two colonial powers signed a new treaty that moved the boundary from Rio de Rey to Akpayafe River. This treaty cut Bakassi into Cameroun. Since this was the last treaty signed by the two powers on their borders, it was accepted as having superseded earlier treaties.

The colonial history of a lost ownership

At the end of the war, all German territories were divided between France and Britain by the treaty of Versailles (Idehen, 2008; Omoigui, n.d.). The boundaries between British and French Cameroun were defined by the Franco-British declaration of 10 July 1919 by Viscount Milner, the British Secretary of State for colonies; and Henry Simon, the French Minister for the colonies. In the agreement, Bakassi and the area known as British Cameroun were placed under British mandate and administered with Nigeria, though they never actually merged. On 29 December 1929 and January 31 1930 further agreements were signed between Sir Graeme Thomson (Governor of the colony and Protectorate of Nigeria) and Paul Merchand (Commisaries de la Republique Francaise and Cameroun). These developments were ratified and incorporated in an exchange of notes on 9 January 1931, between the French Ambassador in London and the British Prime Minister (Akinyemi, 1974; Idehen, 2008)

The post-independence history of a lost ownership

However, the Geneva Convention of 1958 on international boundaries fixed the boundaries between Nigeria and British Cameroun at Rio Del Rey. Such boundary delineation effectively included Bakassi in Nigeria’s territory (Durotoye 1994). Following the plebiscites of 1961, the decision of West/South Cameroun to be autonomous of independent Nigeria and the need for a well-defined boundary became an issue of dispute (Idise 1996: 153). On the reunification of Anglophone and Francophone Cameroun, Konings (2005: 283) intimates: ‘One of the immediate consequences of this was a dramatic change in the legal status and economic opportunities of the substantial number of Igbo and other Nigerian migrants residing in Anglophone Cameroun’.

Asobie (2005) has rendered the Nigerian Bakassi crisis as a product of contradictions. The first is the clash between tradition and modernity – the tension between cartographical fact and cultural reality; the conflict between the dictates’ abstruse international law and the existential imperatives of struggling humanity; and the gap between the demands of raison d’être and the needs of concerned citizens. These contradictions derived from the colonial economic interest of profit driven colonial possession. As has been well documented: first, especially during the colonial days, the peninsula was regarded as a worthless zone of discontent, a strip of dismal ramp inhabited by a few miserable folks. Not surprisingly, the British state readily ceded it to the Germans, citing administrative convenience (Asobie, 2005:82). It is in this context that Obasanjo (1981: 93) and Akpan (1971: 21) found and recognized Bakassi in the maps of Cameroun.

Thus, the uncertainties and the lack of political will on the part of the British that inherited the Nigerian side of former German Cameroun informed the foundation of the Bakassi crisis. Unwilling for financial reasons to commit resources to the task of organizing border posts and patrol activities, Nigeria inherited a boundary crisis that culminated in the loss of lives and a threat to sub-regional peace. The emergence of the petro-state and the rise of the world oil aristocracies tended to coincide with the rediscovery of Bakassi as an oil belt and a possible military strategic post for the western neo-imperial project (Idahosa, 2010). It is within this context and calculations that the Geneva Convention reconstructed the boundary to deviate from the initial Anglo-German treaty of 1913 in order to lay the foundation for a sub-regional neo-imperial machine in the Gulf of Guinea (Idahosa, 2010). The consequence has been a state of growing fear, feelings of insecurity and tension in the disputed zone, and Cameroun adventurism backed by a Franco-Camerounian Defence pact. It has been argued that France has always had imperial and security interests in the area. For instance, the French Government was reported to have deployed troops to Bakassi to bolster Cameroun’s claim to the Peninsula. Nigeria’s military authorities interpreted the Franco-Cameroun defence pact as a design to attack Nigeria in the event of military aggression against Cameroun (Aluko, 1981). The apprehensions that followed this development crystallized into the 1975 Treaty between the two Heads of state: General Yakubu Gowon of Nigeria and Alhaji Amadu Ahijo, his Camerounian counterpart, in the border town of Maroua. This treaty actually shifted the boundary earlier adopted by the two leaders in April 1971. The treaty also included an affirmation of the commitment to freedom and security of navigation in the Calabar/Cross River channel for vessels of the two countries (Idise,1996: 154).

However, the Maroua accord was not ratified as it was later repudiated by the Obasanjo administration. Gowon consistently denied ceding any part of a country he fought to unite. The Camerounians refused to accept the Maroua accord as a mere declaration, truce and indeed a nullity. Gowon has been blamed for a similar diplomatic blunder over the Aburi Declaration, which granted the right of secession to Biafra during the Nigerian civil war. It is as a result of this generalized perception that the Supreme Military Council saw a repeat of cheap diplomacy that served Camerounian interest. The Supreme Military Council therefore refused to sign the pact. The apprehension and mutual mistrust culminated in the brutal killing of five Nigerian soldiers in Ikang, Cross River State on 16 May 1981. In November 1981, Mr. Makele was tortured and detained for 29 months in a camp in Yaounde. Six Nigerian fishing settlements were violently attacked in January 1989, while persons suspected to be of Nigerian origin were either molested or killed. In December 1993, the gendarmes killed six Nigerians in Abona while many others were declared missing. The Nigerian dispatch of a detachment of troops to the disputed Bakassi Peninsula to protect Nigerians in the disputed zone was interpreted as an invasion project that was counterforced by the mass deployment of Camerounian troops and the subsequent invocation of the Franco-Camerounian Defence pact. French initiative climaxed with the dispatch of French troops and hardware in a manner typical of gun-boat diplomacy. France matched this offensive with a military exercise in the neighbouring Republic of Benin, both as a signal and a rehearsal for an imminent invasion of Nigeria by French troops (Idise, 1996: 155).

The slip-away: how Nigeria lost Bakassi

The loss of Bakassi to Cameroun reports the crisis of treaty contradictions and the poverty of Nigerian diplomacy in the Bakassi Peninsula. In every phase of the history of Nigerian–Cameroun diplomacy and conflict over the Bakassi, fundamental gaps that suggested Nigeria’s lack of diplomatic seriousness or disinterest in the zone were often harvested by the government of Cameroun, to her national advantage.

Before the formal establishment of colonial rule in Nigeria in 1914, a new Anglo-German agreement signed in 1913 violated the terms on territorial alienation in the treaty signed by the British and the Obong of Calabar. Although the Obong protested the signing of that treaty on 11 March 1913, the outbreak of World War I a year later undermined the protest. Secondly, the failure of the government to implement the recommendations of a pilot study of ‘Nigeria’s coastal defence and security’ published under restricted cover in NIPSS Policy Review Series, R, No. 1 of 1983 did not help the situation. In addition, the updated version of this study, also published in 1988 as a volume five of NIPPS studies on Nigeria’s international borders, was similarly not taken with diplomatic seriousness in spite of the huge circulation.

In the second phase of the transition, the British government set up structures for the governance system for Nigeria and Bakassi without actually merging the territory with Nigeria. Thus, Bakassi was recognized as part of Cameroun during the colonial era – in spite of the fact that the people were enumerated and included in the 1953 and 1961 Nigerian census figures. They also participated in the election of the representatives to the Opobo/Oron County Council, Eastern Regional House of Assembly, including the federal legislature (Imobighe, 2013: 209), although they did not participate in the UN 1961 plebiscite since they were administered from Eket.

In the post-independence phase, the cartographic map of Nigeria did not recognize Bakassi as part of Nigeria but as part of Cameroun, while the Ministry of Justice so advised the Ministry of External Affairs. Similarly, on this note, the Attorney General in his letter to the Commissioner for External Affairs in 1972 stated:

Nigeria is bound to honour a number of pre-independence treaties and other international agreements inherited from Britain by virtue of the Exchange of Notes of October 1, 1960, between us and the United Kingdom on treaty obligations. The following agreements relevant to the present subject matter, which are binding on Nigeria and which should be read together, show that the Peninsula belongs to the Camerouns as the international boundary was drawn through the Thalweg of the River Akpayafe, which puts the Bakassi Peninsula on the Cameroun side of the boundary.

(i) Article 21 of the Agreement between the United Kingdom and Germany signed at London on March 11, 1913;

(ii) The Anglo-German Protocol signed at Obokun on April 12, 1913; and

(iii) The Exchange of Letters between the British and German Governments on July 6, 1914.

…

According to the information received from the Federal Directorate of Surveys, the Bakassi Peninsula has never been included in the administrative maps of Nigeria since the then Southern Camerouns ceased to be part of Nigeria in 1961. Also, the Northern Region, Western Region and Eastern Region (Definition of Boundaries) Proclamation1954 (L.N. 126 of 1954) showed the Bakassi Peninsula as forming part of the then Southern Camerouns. Moreover, by a Diplomatic Note No. 570 of March 27, 1962, from your Ministry to the Embassy of the Camerouns in Lagos, to which was attached a map prepared by the Federal Surveys, Nigeria recognised the Bakassi Peninsula as forming part of the Camerouns. (Imobighe, 2013: 210–211)

Nigeria–Cameroun discord: from oil to military strategic interest

The crux of the discord between Nigeria and Cameroun revolves around the control and sovereign ownership of the Bakassi Peninsula, which raised fundamental boundary questions. However, boundary dispute alone has limited explanatory value for explaining the crises escalation that characterized the zone. The issue of the contestation between Cameroun and Nigerian nationalism in a zone characterized by porous borders, the Anglophone-Cameroun secessionist movement, and the Nigerian migrant community, in a disputed zone of danger, posed a serious threat to regional peace and neo-imperial interests in Africa.

Beyond boundary issues, the location of the Bakassi in the oil belt allocates economic value to a hitherto worthless zone of discontent inhabited by miserable folks (Asobie, 2005: 110). The new economic status of the zone in today’s world derives from the fact that people’s lives are affected and the destinies of nations determined by oil industry operations. Oil has become the quickest source of economic and social transformation since the Arab–Israeli war. For Cameroun, sovereign ownership of Bakassi meant admission into the club of oil producing states of the world, while for Nigeria, ownership and control of Bakassi implied enhanced status in the comity of oil-producing states and an added profile to her African regional agenda of being a sub-imperial African power.

Finally, Bakassi lies within the Gulf of Guinea, which is considered by both nations to be of great military strategic value. For this reason, the Nigerian Navy has considered Bakassi to be a good defence post for her naval interest. It is also considered a fortress for warding off the possible invasion of Nigeria through the sea. Nigeria cannot afford to ignore the Peninsula in the light of the Niger Delta threat. To the Camerounians, such access means being in a vulnerable state and being the possible prey of an Anglophone African regional power, which is unacceptable to the spirit of the Franco–Camerounian Defence pact. Therefore, strategic military and economic considerations are at the roots of the relations of these two African neighbours over the Bakassi Peninsula.

Bakassi and the second wave neo-imperial global order

The second wave neo-imperial global order is marked by securitization due to the entry of former communist regimes into a global free world that is available for deep water and underground imperialism. The development of third generation seismic technology has accelerated this process. The second wave neo-imperial global order is a response to the contradictions unleashed by the low politics of globalization and the post-cold war era. The rise of China to a post-cold war economic power, which accounted for 40% of total growth in global demand for oil in the last four years, is considered in the West, particularly America, with suspicion (Imobighe, 2010). The displacement of the Soviet Union by China suggests that it is the state to be checkmated. On this score, a new imperial security architecture in which the United States proposed the idea of an African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI), and a Unified Military Command structure (AFRICOM), are broached and implicated (Idahosa, 2010; Imobighe, 2003). On this score, it has been observed:

The AFRICOM project, which was formally established on February 6, 2007, is like reviving the Cold War politics of containment all over again, under which Africa has once again become a hotbed of big power struggle for strategic reasons. The difference this time is that China has taken the position of Soviet Union as the power to be check-mated. China’s thirst for energy for the country’s expanding economy has led it to make inroads into the Middle East and Africa. (Imobighe, 2010: 28)

Bakassi enjoys the economic and military strategic interest of the second wave neo-imperial global states – America, Britain, France, and Germany. These states, including Italy, are also the home state of major oil multinationals driving the economies of the petro-states in the Gulf of Guinea where Bakassi (Cameroun) and Nigeria are located. It has been reported that during the last five years, which witnessed reduced oil field discoveries, Africa’s Gulf of Guinea contributed one in every four barrels of new petroleum discovered outside of North America. Thus, Bakassi oil is of fundamental interest in the calculation of the second wave neo-imperial global order. In 2007, Exxon Mobil announced record profits approximating US$40.6b, Royal Dutch Shell made US$27.56b, while Chevron-Texaco recorded US$18.7b (cited in Emuedo, 2010). Thus, Bakassi as part of the Gulf of Guinea in which light sweet crude oil is in abundance is an axis of wealth, over which the global states cannot risk war.

Beneath the second wave neo-imperial interest in the petro-state of New Guinea axis is a volatile mix of forces whose dynamics has unleashed what Watts (2005) has called ‘the oil complex’. Within this context, strategic challenges from foreign and local security forces; ethical demands from global and local civil society organizations and NGOs; claims and counter claims over oil wealth control, ownership rights, distributive rights, cross-border mergers, conflicts, acquisition and inter-state boundary claims; have come to inject a panoply of social and political forces into ‘the oil complex’, to the extent of raising new security questions. These developments have been further complicated by the twin forces of post-September 11, 2001 politics – the failure of post-war US oil policy and the lightness of global oil markets.

It is in the vortex of these social forces and the renewed neo-imperial scramble for oil field partition that we are to situate aggressive Chinese oil companies’ debut into the Nigerian oil political economy. On the heels of Chinese president Hu Jinto’s visit to Nigeria in April 2006, China’s National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) acquired two oil blocs each in the Chad Basin and the Niger Delta. Her acquisition of a 45% stake in a Nigerian oil-for-gas field for US$2.27b, and her further purchase of an oil exploration licence in the Niger Delta for US$60m, signalled the emergence of a new actor in Nigerian underground and offshore imperialism (Emuedo, 2009). This acquisition in Nigeria is China’s highest in the world. By this initiative, China aims to diversify her sources of oil supply, reduce dependence on Middle East oil and benefit from the lucrative international oil business. This oil complex and China’s new underground and underwater imperialism coupled with the September 11 bombing provoked the securitization of the Niger Delta, the Gulf of Guinea and the sudden articulation of a new western energy security paradigm for the Gulf of Guinea. In addition, Nigeria’s arms deal with China to engage the Niger Delta militants in the face of Washington’s decline of her initial request to supply arms to Nigeria further puts America on a new alert of a possible post-cold war communist imperialism (Roughneen, 2006). Thus, when Nigeria sealed a deal of US$251m with Beijing to buy 12 F-7NI fighter jets and three FT-7NI Trainer jets and associated equipment and after sales services contracts, America’s apprehension of communist imperial competition in the Gulf was confirmed enough to show that the cold war is not a thing of the past. Concisely, a flirtatious Nigeria cannot be trusted by America for the protection of western interests on the Bakassi project (Azaiki, 2006; Defense Industry Monitor, 2005; The China Monitor, 2006–2007).

The global politics of green tree diplomacy

Although a sub-regional inter-state boundary dispute which threatened to escalate into a sub-regional war within the Gulf of Guinea, the Nigeria–Cameroun Bakassi conflict acquired a global stature within the context of the operational security architecture of the Gulf of Guinea which seeks to globalize security in the incipient second wave neo-global governance. The Nigeria–Cameroun conflict thus provided an ample opportunity for the operationalization of this new geography of power shared by global states, regional states and the national states. In this global security architecture, such global states as America, Britain, France and Germany were to mediate between Nigeria, a regional state; and Cameroun, a national state; in a globalized security arrangement founded and driven by the mirror image of ‘cognitive existentialism’. It is in the doctrine of ‘cognitive existentialism’ that we are to situate the character of the global politics of state survival in the Nigeria–Cameroun dispute.

The politics of conflict avoidance and state survival played in the Green Tree Accord were influenced by the character of post-globalization and post-cold war thinking. America as the major umpire was guided by her self-image as the leader of the free world, and the emerging AFRICOM project. In addition, the US needs Nigeria and Bakassi oil for fuelling her industries and production system. Secondly, as part of the Gulf of Guinea, any threat to national security in any member nation of the security project would not reflect well on the American security management credentials. France as a colonial power still has strong ties with former African colonies to the extent that the monetary system of Francophone states is tied to the French Franc. Possible annexation of the Bakassi Peninsula by Nigeria was perceived in Elysee Palace as a loss of French interest and influence in Africa. Downing Street, London has a historic tie with the US that drives the Anglo-American alliance in global diplomacy. Britain has a diplomatic obligation to support the US and the turbo engine of AFRICOM. As a result of World War I, Germany exited the Bakassi Peninsula and this exit continues to influence her relations and interest in Bakassi. In addition, as part of the AFRICOM project and the headquarters of the Gulf of Guinea security architecture, Germany equally has a peace obligation in the Nigeria–Cameroun Bakassi conflict. Nigeria as a regional state is the architect of Big brother diplomacy in Africa and would hate to be involved in conflict with a highly prized neighbour. Aggrieved Cameroun would not go for a grave yard theory of inter-state conflict, since it was sure that the deployment of the Franco-Cameroun defence obligation by France to keep Nigeria out of the oil axis in the Peninsula was certain.

Embodied by France, a former colonial master, Cameroun instituted a case regarding Bakassi against Nigeria at the ICJ at The Hague, seeking adjudication on the disputed Peninsula. In the case, the court, headed by a French President and with British and German Judges, upheld a legal position that ceded the disputed Bakassi to Cameroun on 10 October 2002. The refusal of the French President to resign to prevent judging his own case coupled with EU interests that were protected by German and British Judges meant the case was flawed on integrity grounds. The reluctance of Nigeria to withdraw from Bakassi after four years of ICJ judgement led to the tension in the Peninsula that precipitated the US/UN peace initiative for the ‘Green Tree Accord’ of 12 June 2006. At the tripartite summit in New York, which was convened to reinforce the ICJ judgement, Paul Biya of Cameroun, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and the then UN Secretary General, Koffi Annan, as well as international diplomats from the United States, Britain, France and Germany, Nigeria acceded to a withdrawal from the Bakassi Peninsula within 60 days.

Nigeria’s claim over Bakassi is fraught with a number of contradictions and threats. First, it contradicts the principle of AFRICOM as a regional security arrangement for the Gulf of Guinea of which Nigeria is signatory. Secondly, it points to Nigeria’s possible assertion of Nigerian Nationalism and regional power aspiration as a competing national objective against the global security arrangement enshrined in the AFRICOM project. Thirdly, its claim, combined with the possible outbreak of war, could pose security problems to the zone, a development that could affect America’s energy supplies to her manufacturing industries and services. It is for this reason that America rejected Nigeria’s bid for the purchase of fighter jets for fighting Niger Delta militants, in a bid to avert an intra-regional arms race and possible intra-state conflict escalation.

Conclusion: the dilemma of a regional state

The 14^th day of August 2006 marked the end of the diplomatic manoeuvre that greeted the ICJ verdict of 2002 with the lowering of the Nigerian flag at a peaceful handing over ceremony in Akwa village, while the Camerounian flag was hosted in the Bakassi. This development and eventual handing over was received with mixed feelings by Nigerians. On the one hand, Nigerians accused President Olusegun Obasanjo of selling out in a bid to win a Nobel peace prize and acquire a UN high profile influence. On the other hand, a number of Nigerians see the handing over as a mark of weakness and a descent from its regional hegemonic height.

However, the Obasanjo peace profile may have been influenced by a number of other considerations. An anti-federal militants upsurge and resource control agitation located close to the axis held the prospect for an ignited conflict that could be capitalized on by the petroleum-producing states of the Niger Delta to secede from the Nigerian federation. Secondly, the promise of Bakassi as an oil axis proved disappointing as official records revealed a consistent decline from the overall Camerounian projected figure of 84,000 barrels per day by 2005 to 61,000 barrels per day by 2030 (Idahosa, 2010: 3). Bakassi was thus not considered a zone worthy of going to war over. Thirdly, America’s incorporation of Bakassi as part of the Gulf of Guinea, over which the AFRICOM defence arrangement had been concluded, suggested a high level of risk in the event of an African regional power in a war situation with an African national state sided by the global states. Back home, experiences of the civil war had taught Nigerians a bitter lesson that they would not want repeated. This is further heightened by the contemporary war experience in the failed states of Africa. Finally, the end of the cold war and the rise of uni-multipolar order left Nigeria with no viable alternative source of arms to western sources, in an international environment characterized by low politics of environmental recreation, humanitarian intervention and the politics of human rights.

Nigeria’s withdrawal, however, cannot be viewed only in the context of Big Power intervention but also within the context of Big Brother African diplomacy and her traditional national image of an African leader with a responsibility to protect the image of the black peoples of the world. On this score, Nigeria has invested resources on conflict resolution in Liberia, Sierra Leone and the anti-apartheid struggle with no expectation of economic gains. It is in the context of these considerations that Obasanjo’s capitulation to global states’ conspiracy is implicated.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author biography

Sylvanus Idahota Ebohon is an associate professor of International Political Economy at the University of Benin, Nigeria. He holds a BSc degree in Sociology from the University of Ibadan; MSc degree in International Relations from the University of Ife; and a PhD from the Victoria University of Manchester in the UK. He has served in Edo State government as Executive Director, Bureau of Political Affairs including many other civic engagements with the Delta State government. Widely read locally and internationally, his areas of interest include Development Studies and international political economy. He is also widely published locally and internationally.

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