Nigeria-Cameroon Mixed Commission gets $9m for boundary demarcation
The Nigeria-Cameroon Mixed Commission has secured about nine million dollars for the demarcation of the 1,900 km boundary between both countries.
The director general of the National Boundary Commission, Alhaji Saddiq Diggi, made this known to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at the weekend in Abuja.
Diggi said that Nigeria and Cameroon contributed three million dollars each to the total amount for the exercise.
Diggi said that the other donor countries include the UK, which donated one million pounds, the European Union (EU) gave about 400,000 euros, while Canada assisted in the training of the commission's staff.
``In fact, the European Commission is also proposing an assistance but we are not yet sure of the amount. The whole account is being maintained by the UN,'' he said.
The Mixed Commission, which would be meeting in Yaounde on January, 25 and January 26, would discuss the maritime boundary and the land boundary between both countries, he added.
The director general said that the mixed commission had appointed a sub commission on the maritime boundary, which, he said, had been working very hard to identify and determine the maritime boundary between the countries.
He, however, said that only a month ago the sub commission comprising the joint team of the UN, Nigeria and Cameroon had been able to discover a clear line of the maritime boundary.
``For 10 days, they were on the high sea where, both countries showed their clear lines of the maritime boundary. We have already started analysing the findings.
``The report will be presented at the meeting in Yaounde for discussion,'' he said.
On the land boundary demarcation, Diggi, who just assumed duty as the director general in November last year, said the mixed commission had started the delineation but the actual demarcation had not yet started.
According to him, delineation means tracing the boundary as specified by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
He said that the commission had started the first phase of the exercise starting from Borno border stretching about 420 kilometers and by the end of January it would get to Adamawa.
``We have started the typical identification of the boundary. We are working along every inch of the boundary with the assistance of the UN, before we start putting pillars for the final demarcation,'' he said.
The main problem confronting the exercise, he noted was the implementation of the judgment arising from the interpretation of the text.
``For instance, in those days the Cameroon Nigeria boundary was just a track but now the Cameroonian government has constructed a major highway on the boundary, so its difficult to determine the boundary,'' he said.