The information is from security authorities who are taking steps to thwart the Nigerian army’s plans for assaults on the Bakassi Peninsula.

The temperature is rising at the Cameroon-Nigeria border. The crackle of weapons is announced. In a radio message from police authorities, a copy of which is circulating on social media, the armed forces of the neighboring country are preparing to attack Cameroon at the Bakassi peninsula. According to this message from the Director of Territorial Surveillance, armed clashes took place in the first week of January 2023 between the Cameroonian and Nigerian defense forces. 

This message indicates preparations on the Nigerian side for the reconquest of the Bakassi Peninsula; serious attacks by Nigerian soldiers on the national territory of Cameroon in February 2023, two weeks before the Nigerian presidential election scheduled for February 25, 2023. The targeted localities are Kombo Abedimo, Kombo Etindi, and Idiabato. The Nigerians intend to restore the old names of certain localities in Nigerian languages.

Faced with this announcement, the security and administrative authorities are taking steps to thwart Nigeria’s destabilizing maneuvers.

The first signals of this looming crisis were given in early January when the Nigerian authorities seized the International Court of Justice (ICJ). They dispute part of the course of the border as decided by the court in 2002. Nigeria maintains that the coordinates of marker 8 at Monts Rhumsiki in the Far North region are not accurate.

This new referral to CIJ for some analysts already announced the visible part of the persistence of the crisis despite the court’s decision in 2002 and its gradual implementation. This hypothesis, therefore, seems to be confirmed by the clashes that have taken place and the planned attacks.

In October 2002, the decision marking the end of the conflict which broke out in 1992 and which caused deaths between 1994 and 1996, did not suit all Nigerians. Some continue to believe that the oil and gas-rich Bakassi Peninsula should belong to Nigeria. However, after the decision of the ICJ, the majority of the milestones were placed despite a few points of disagreement that remained to be settled.