Nigeria agrees to withdraw troops from area disputed with Cameroon4 December – Nigeria has agreed to withdraw its troops, starting next week, from the Lake Chad area after the United-Nations chaired panel set up to resolve the border dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon held its seventh meeting this week.
In a nine-point communiqué issued yesterday at the end of the two-day meeting of the Cameroon-Nigeria Mixed Commission in Yaoundé, Cameroon, the parties agreed that the troop withdrawal and handover would take place from 8-18 December.
Cameroon and Nigeria also agreed that observer personnel from the Mixed Commission be sent immediately to the Lake Chad area, in both countries' north, and stay for a year to strengthen confidence in the region.
The two States agreed to further discuss the delimitation of their maritime boundary in the south at the next meeting, scheduled for Abuja, Nigeria, in February. They also agreed that the Mixed Commission should visit the disputed oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula at a date to be arranged.
The Mixed Commission further agreed that a separate joint commission between the countries should meet every year instead of every two years.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan established the Mixed Commission last year at the request of Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Paul Biya of Cameroon following an International Court of Justice ruling on the border dispute. Mr. Annan's Special Representative for West Africa, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, chairs the panel.
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