Ken Okeke
Nigeria and Cameroon have agreed to resolve their long-standing border disputes outside of the courtroom.
The agreement includes visits to disputed territories in northern Cameroon and eastern Nigeria by the end of 2024, with plans to conclude the project by the end of 2025.
Both countries which share a 2,100-kilometer border from Lake Chad to the Atlantic Ocean, have been at loggerheads for several decades. In 2002, an International Court of Justice ruling ceded the oil-rich Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon.
To oversee the implementation of this ruling, both nations’ leaders requested the establishment of the Cameroon-Nigeria Mixed Commission.
It is with the help of this Commission, chaired by Leonardo Santos Simao, that both countries have now decided to resolve their disputes outside of a courtroom.
According to Simao, this approach will help both countries avoid the lengthy and costly process of the International Court of Justice.