The study and its research problem

Historically, the propulsion to satisfy man’s unending needs via the primitive accumulation of wealth has usually been at the centre of most conflicts [1,2] not only in Africa, but in other parts of the world. Nevertheless, this is truer in Africa, where majority of the incessant conflicts, largely internecine, are habitually instigated by man’s skewed public and foreign policies for resource mobilization and allocation. These policies are incarnated by national governments (NG), controlled by gluttonous political leaders, in post-colonial African countries, who nefariously partnership with insatiable profit-driven multi-national corporations acting as state, sub-state and/or non-state actors to subjugate and impoverish indigenous African peoples.

Paradoxically, this trend appears inelastic, because Africa’s local communities remain fragile and distanced from obtaining any enduring pleasure from the resources found right inside their indigenous milieu. As Adaobi [3] opines, “Africans appear asphyxiated and debilitated by endless conflicts with little or no hope for survival; and perhaps, in order to wrestle out their survival, rebel groups spring up to challenge the perceived authors of conflicts, who operate in most resource inundated areas in Africa”.

In order to substantiate the theoretical premises of this study, the ensuing excerpts empirically reveal the extent of threats to peace from Niger Delta and Bakassi Peninsula indigenes in the Gulf of Guinea.

From the Bakassi indigenes as extracted from a speech by Edimo, (2017)

“Does the discovery of crude oil in Ndian Division benefit her people?”

No, from 1964 to date, millions of barrels of oil have been pumped out of Ndian Division (Bakassi Peninsula) but the population of that division has nothing to show that God blessed her land with oil as places like Texas in the USA or Niger Delta and Port Harcourt in Nigeria.

Why have we not benefited from oil revenue?

The answer is simple. We have never made our voices heard, perhaps due to ignorance with regards to the source of crude oil. Of the many persons we spoke with, during our research, only few were aware that Limbe (not in the Bakassi Peninsula), but a town in Cameroon, hosts the industry that refines crude oil rigged from Ndian Division. Perhaps, our previous political leaders were not only ignorant, but radically unassertive. As legend has it, Mr. Lobe Nwanlipenja, a several tenures Member of Parliament from the Bakassi Peninsula, did ask former President Ahmadou Ahidjo about oil revenues. But Alhidjo sarcastically responded thus: "Lobe Nwanlipenja, you de ask moni for oyan, Na you mami oyan." Translated: Lobe Nwanlipenja, why do you ask for oil revenue, is it your mother’s oil?” Let us wake up from sleep and start a civilized fight for a better tomorrow so as to save future generations from this demeaning exploitation of resources right inside our land…”

From the Niger Delta indigenes as extracted from speech by Ebhomele

“The leaders in the Gbaramatu Kingdom are asking President Muhammadu Buhari to implement a court order which granted 100 billion naira, (naira is Nigeria’s local currency) to the Gbaramatu Community. Within the month of April, 2017, the Gbaramatu Kingdom in Warri, (the hotbed of the Niger Delta Crisis) in Delta State had warned the Federal Government of Nigeria to implement this order or face another round of bloodshed against the troops of the Nigerian state and workers of multinational oil corporations. To this effect, the community leaders in Gbaramatu have written a letter to President Muhammadu Buhari expressing concerns that their youths are agitated because of the effects of invading into their future. Therefore, the Kingdom located in the Niger Delta zone warns of fresh tension, if their demands for N100b are not met as the court ordered since 2013…” Equally, another rebel group, the Niger Delta Revolutionary Crusaders (NDRC) also warned that, “…there will be no further exploration of crude oil in the Niger Delta zone, if the June, 2017 policy statement for restructuring and the application of fiscal federalism announced by Nigeria’s Acting President Yemi Osinbajo is thwarted,” [4,5].

Essentially, these repulsive threats, occasioned by the quest to secure human needs, form the substratum and justification for this study, because the irreconcilability between indigenous combatants and the state’s rebuff to satisfy their needs appear to seriously fragilise peace and stability in Africa’s Gulf of Guinea. Given this situation, the ongoing combats in Niger Delta and the restiveness of the Bakassi indigenes, we situate this study on the intellectual premise that, ‘deeprooted social, economic and political, even cultural conflicts, spring from skewed injustice-prune national policies, which impel unsatisfied human basic needs.’ Consequently, since injustice and peace have never become bedmates in democracies, it is incumbent on emerging democracies of Nigeria and Cameroon to apply justice in their nascent democratic experiences. And the surest way to do this is by equitably allocating human needs (resources) in order to avert conflicts, as in the Bakassi Peninsula and the obdurate Niger Delta conflict.

The implications for this aversion revolve around the articulation of sound policies to appropriately allocate human needs. These threats apart, we are further perturbed by the conflict-prune character of selfseeking African postcolonial states, sub-state and non-state actors, especially those involved in the Nigeria’s Niger Delta conflict; who equally dominate the extraction of crude oil in the Bakassi Peninsula. Considering also that: (i) these state, sub-state and non-state actors can easily exert enormous influence upon the self-rendered vulnerable leaders of African countries; (ii) these actors have the abilities to mobilise fast and colossal wealth to invest in these oil rich zones; (iii) these zones’ (Niger Delta and Bakassi Peninsula) proximity to each other; (iv) the similarities of the zones’ geography, demographics and culture; (v) the unenviable economic, social and political conditions of the peoples of these zones; make it is plausible to assert that, there exist real possibilities of a spillover of Nigeria’s Niger Delta conflict into the Bakassi Peninsula. Perhaps, in order to provide a clearer picture of the foregoing, we will, in combination with other analytical tools, offer analysis based on Burton’s Human Needs Theory (1990) 2 as the central theoretical framework for this study.

The theoretical framework of analysis - conflicts and the human needs theory

Burton’s work: Conflict: The Human Needs Theory (1990) exposes the primary instinct of man’s quest to satisfy his needs, within the scheme of scarce resources, with the tendency to always instigate conflicts. In this study, such instigation, with its dangerous threats to peace and security in the Gulf of Guinea, might most likely come from the cross-border militancy of Nigeria’s Nigeria Delta conflict into Cameroon’s Bakassi Peninsula. Perhaps, the surest way to curtail this instigation is for the Cameroonian state to institutionalize an equitable resource mobilization and allocation formula. To guarantee its vitality, such formula must be articulated with the view to attaining domestic and foreign policy thrusts that would dissuade open or hidden rebellions. “Human needs are undoubtedly the material bedrock for man’s survival; hence they are bound to attract conflicts,” observes [6].

The suitability of this theory in this work is its ability to enable us offers striking scientific explanations for understanding the correlation between the satisfaction or non-satisfaction of human needs and human conflicts, and as a veritable catalyst in managing, preventing and resolving conflicts. Globally, it provides the scientific basis to approaches for elucidating political, economic, social and cultural contexts of human conflicts; especially in terms of assisting decision making to articulate appropriate domestic and foreign policies and their implications for peace, stability, progress, prosperity and happiness. Thus, if applied, it could be a leeway to avert the looming conflict in the Cameroon’s Bakassi Peninsula.

So, fixed on Burton’s human needs theory and even Marx’s dialectical materialism narrative, both of which place primacy on material conditions of life, particularly economic factors, it is sine qua non that only an equitable resource allocation formula, meticulously conceived and implemented for the Bakassi Peninsula, will forestall the looming conflict over resources in Cameroon. Indeed, it is popular axiom that, economic needs are man’s most fundamental needs. Nevertheless, be it as it may, and considering the activities of multinational oil corporations or not, it appears, all human needs can hardly be met under any circumstance. Thus, it might be palatable for human beings to give value and self-satisfaction to the few possessed basic human needs, without involving into obdurate conflicts. Ideally, the spirit of altruism should prevail in the relations among competing social, economic and political forces in societies.

For instance, in the Nigeria’s Niger Delta obdurate conflict, the Nigerian State, the multi-national oil companies, the Niger Delta indigenes and the international community, acting as state, sub-state and non-state actors are lurked over the distribution of crude oil resources from the Niger Delta zone. While the Niger Delta indigenes accuse the Nigerian state of diabolical connivance with multi-national oil corporations operating in the zone to nefariously extract resources from their indigenous environment, while causing extensive environmental degradation without adequately addressing the indigenes’ social and economic plights; the Nigeria state accuses the indigenes of irresponsible insurgence. Certainly, such an argument appears intoxicative and can radically engender the unpleasant plausibility of neighboring people of the Bakassi Peninsula to rise against the Cameroon government; since the Bakassi people, like the people of the Nigeria’s Niger Delta have similar assumptions and arguments over their degraded ecosystem, poor economic and social conditions in the face of abundant crude oil resources in their zone.

In fact, as Biersteker [7] notes, “questions about the roles, impact and implications of resource mobilization and allocation, and the activities of global firms in Africa’s conflicts have constantly generated intense controversies in recent years, both at the level of empirical policy-making and/or theoretical academic circles”. So far, these questions appear to remain unsatisfactorily resolved. Thus, the sociological, psychological, demographical, cultural, political and economic consequences of multi-national relations with the indigenous people of African societies should be of central concern to Africans, especially those interested in conflict management, prevention, human development, international relations and positive social change.

Theoretical and practical guides for domestic and foreign policy-making for Nigeria and Cameroon

Hereinafter, seven major overlapping policy guides are discernible, which revolve around conflict-prune character similarities of the actors usually involved in African conflicts, namely:

(a) The lame-duck post-colonial and overbearing centralist nature of the African state and its lack of high-technological know-how and/or the low or no zeal to acquire it; including its impatient and cankerous indigenous peoples;

(b) The egoistic insatiability and profit-oriented nature of multinational oil corporations and the passively obscure tendencies of the international community.

(c) The geographical proximity of zones - the Niger Delta and the Bakassi Peninsula located within the resource-rich Gulf of Guinea.

(d) The similitude of the ecosystems – swampy coastal lines, huge and think mangrove trees forests with several species of rare fauna, the never-dry waterways, covering abundant in-water and under-water resources - fisheries and massive crude oil deposits.

(e) The similarity of scanty human density including their low level of awareness of economic and political processes; and the nonaccumulation of high profile cultural conditions. These factors are fostered by the similitudes of the peoples’ cultural stereotypes, e.g. widespread laziness in communal living styles, unwarranted docility and unassertiveness, especially in the Bakassi Peninsula.

(f) The shortfall of any enviable sustainable healthcare, education, agricultural and energy systems; manpower forecasts and human development policies; the prevailing and permeating poverty and unemployment in the face of abundant natural resources. Furthermore, the lack of good housing facilities, road network, pipeborne water and energy supply.

(g) In specific terms, we consider the overbearing character of the centralized Cameroon state, and the skewed Nigerian federalism, which bolster the penchant for elite preferences.

Thus, the conditions orchestrated by these factors are worsened by the lack of adequate democratic cultures in Nigeria and Cameroon, as manifested by the absence of independent executives, legislatures and judiciaries coupled with the lack of any independent and solid economic bases, which impel independently forward looking public and foreign policies.

Given this, Galtung believes that, “Perhaps, Cameroon, now threatened by massive uproar, is commonly known as Africa in miniature with its 250 local languages, 24 major ones, has incredible hospitable people, diverse in scenery and natural resources. It is relatively peaceful and secure and in the centre of a continent torn by conflicts and violence mostly generated by Africa’s disastrous relations with the outside world” [8]. But it appears Galtung’s notions may not be really cogent in Cameroon today; given the characters and degrees of structural violence inherent in Cameroon society, occasioned by what Bayart [9] calls “the politics of the belly” syndrome, peace appear elusive in Cameroon. In fact, the absence of actual armed combat; that is - a country engaged into physical gun trotting and shooting conflict, between warring parties does not make Cameroon any secure and/or peaceful. Certainly, one must find some ways of looking at the phenomenon of ‘peace and security in Cameroon,’ with the aim of making reasonable predictions, which can inform rationally articulated domestic and foreign policy-making. The international community should not merely relish in wishful thinking about this deceptive notion associated to Cameroon as an ‘Island of Peace in sub-Saharan Africa’, to scoop as much natural resources as possible, via multinational corporations, before daring to come to terms with the country’s prevailing threats to global peace and security. The character of structural and psychological violence that exists in Cameroon, especially in the Bakassi Peninsula provides sufficient indicators to the threat to peace, security and stability in Cameroon. Since, its retrocession by Nigeria to Cameroon, via an International Court of Justice ruling of 10th December, 2002, the Bakassi Peninsula has not witnessed any viable and essential human services, even with the extensive extraction of huge petroleum resources by Elf, Total and other multi-national oil corporations therefrom.

Certainly, if one has to deal with the concepts of peace and conflict, care must be taken to enact clear evidence in terms of the realities and not mere speculations. Nevertheless, “…dealing with conflicts, especially those with international dimensions evokes quite an uphill task,” [10]. That is why it is nonsensical, or better still, most flattery, to always confide in oneself that Cameroon is entirely peaceful and secure. Perhaps, most of why Cameroon could be viewed as peaceful and secure stems from the hallucinatory nature of a non-assertive civil society, especially its French-speaking component. From this perspective, one can applaud Galtung insightful remarks, which aptly indicates that, “…Africa, is a continent torn by conflicts and violence mostly generated by its disastrous relations with the outside world”. Evidently, what Cameroonians could be boastful of are the ‘apparent relative and transient, not pure and permanent peace and security’, as the concepts of peace and security could be elusive to Cameroon, given the several contentions by sections of the population for devolution of political power and sharing of natural resources like in the Bakassi Peninsula. Certainly, hardly can any human society be assured of permanent peace, talk less of Cameroon, being as it is, a very close neighbor to the Nigeria’s Niger Delta obdurate conflict with its several parameters that can possibly prod the transfer its conflict into Cameroon.

Yet, observers insinuate Cameroon’s peaceful relativity to the fact that, in countries that surround by it in the Central African Sub- Region, there are ruthless and internecine war fares, which are generated either by self-seeking political power mongers and/or selfseeking territorial controllers in these countries or their mentors from outside, especially over natural resources. In these countries, people live in perpetual fear of gunfire’s devastations, attracting as it is, severe hunger, misery, disease and incessant deaths. For instance, in Nigeria [11] argues, “…rebel groups view the character of the Nigerian state and its policies on fiscal federalism relating to the exploration, allocation and appropriation of revenue from crude oil and other resources as wellspring for incessant crisis”.

A similar contention appears to be held by Omah, [12] who stresses that, “…the hottest issue that might cause the split of Nigeria is the non-respect of best practices in resource allocation in the country. Similarly, opines that “…a bourgeoning organization in the Bakassi Peninsula grouping under the aegis of the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) with perhaps very strong roots in the Niger Delta, might be brewing a quarrel with the Cameroon government and the multi-national oil corporations, over the nature of Cameroon’s fiscal dispositions relating to the exploration, allocation and appropriation of crude oil revenues from the Bakassi Peninsula”.

Given this, they are claims that, irrespective of the ongoing projects which the people of Niger Delta and Bakassi Peninsula call, ‘pacifying’ that are doted here and there in the two oil-rich areas, the political, social, economic conditions of the indigenous peoples in the zones are not only deeply deplorable, but deteriorate on a daily basis [13]. Apparently, in Cameroon’s Bakassi Peninsula, the creation of a National Commission on the Implementation of Priority Projects in Bakassi Peninsula through a presidential decree in 2008, abrogated and replaced by decree No 2017/8819 PM of 21st August, 2017 relating to the creation, organization and functioning of the Bakassi Peninsula Development Programme, are mere cajoling setups, which portend very little impact to the livelihood of the local communities. Similarly, in Nigeria, the creation of the Ministry for the Niger Delta by is purely a shadow and provocative instruments to the indigenes’ aspirations. Thus, the commonplace contention is that, these governmental outfits only provide official avenues for the siphoning of revenues from oil resources into illegal pockets with everyday risks of engineering conflicts.

Generally, three major pathologies appear to present themselves for prodding most conflicts in Africa. First, it is the character of Africa’s political systems, which are skewed to favour the exploitation of the masses. Secondly, it is the proclivity for elite preferences and the nefarious roles of internal national compradors to primitively acquire and accumulate wealth from the public treasury for the purposes of gaining or retaining illegitimate political and economic supremacy over the toiling masses. Thirdly, it is the insatiable appetite of multinational oil companies to acquire and repatriate huge profits into their metropolitan states, with little or no concern to plough back sufficient dimes into the local populations and their environments. Certainly, these pathologies contribute to enhance the masses’ cynicism against governance in emerging African democracies. As Nyamnjoh [2] posits, “…the African masses are disillusionment by the characters of primitive wealth accumulation and bad governance, which are constantly exhibited by African political leaders and their international partners.”

Thus, besides the similarities of the characteristics of actors affianced in scooping Africa’s huge natural resources, there are also the similarities of historical debilitating social, political, economic and cultural conditions among the people of Bakassi Peninsula, which exist in the same magnitude in Nigeria’s Niger Delta zone. The mangrove forests, swampy coastlines, the fishery occupations, the riverine conditions of wooden canoes transport systems and the wooden houses for human habitations. Undoubtedly, these conditions beckon for concerted national and international concern, since the specific harm susceptible to arise therefrom is the impoverished human conditions of these Africans. Presumably, these are the same human beings, whom the global community purports to protect and preserve at the platforms of the United Nations, but the UN appear more of a cajoling instrument for negotiating away African resources [14].

Furthermore, the proximity of the Niger Delta and Bakassi Peninsula plays a vital connectivity role that can influence and determine the sort of social relations between the Cameroonian state, the multi-national oil companies and the indigenous people of the Bakassi in the near future. Insofar as we are not advocating the relocation of the Bakassi Peninsula in order to avoid Niger Delta conflict contamination, we are actually advocating that, the articulation of sustainable human development policies (strategies), should “…bear human faces, as life-saving variants of Realism in international relations” [15].

These political strategies must be morally skilled to dissuade insurgencies, which are fixed on the premises of tangible or intangible marginalization and near enslavement of a people right inside their indigenous environments. Talking about morality in politics, although Machiavellianism and the adherents of the realism are generally skeptical about the bearings of moral questions in politics, as they claim that all means (moral or immoral) are justified to achieve certain political ends in the state, in what they call, ragione di stato or raison d’état, or reason of the state. However, Onuoha [15] counteracts this supremacist and egoistic political thinking as he develops what he calls, The Human Face Paradigm’ as variant of Realism in international relations. The international community must live up to the expectations of not fighting fire-brigade sort of quenching regional conflicts, as the international community usually arrives at scenes of conflicts, only after such conflicts must have caused massive human and material destruction, thereby providing justification for the accusation leveled against it to the effect that, the international community is very complacent in the generation and escalation of conflicts, especially in Africa.

Certainly, the veracity of this claim is glaringly evident in multifaceted occurrences in this twenty-first century, given that those who sought to confuse truth with falsehood in order to undermine the underlying principles of political, economic and societal historical development, particularly in African countries, have not succeed in doing so with positive satisfaction [16,17]. Thus, according to Wenz, “…it is becoming even clearer to Africans that their future pivots on their own abilities to harmoniously accommodate their interests in their quest to mobilize and allocate resources [18].”

Accordingly, the successes or failures in safeguarding national or international security and peace largely and ultimately depend on man’s (Africans’) capacity to avert conflicts impelled by either internal or external overzealousness. Major reasons for conflicts escalation have always been man’s inability to reach consensual resolutions even in what men consider as their irreconcilable interests mostly over resources. The case of the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis is indicative, though not primarily over mere crude oil, gold, magnesium, copper and so on, but over land – which of course is the most precious natural resource [19,20].

Indeed, Schulkin, in his book, The Delicate Balance: Decision- Making, Rights, and Nature, explicitly illuminates this contention. According to him, man has completely refused to trust in the positive biddings of nature and social thought. He admonishes man to reason that, “Given the finite scope of our natural resources, and our infinite capacity as decision-makers to use nature, we are compelled to rationally formulate some of the issues that underlie our transactions with nature,” [20]. Schulkin, like Dewey, believes that ‘transactions’ spans our use of natural resources to our interactions with one another. The term cuts across both nature and culture. Transactions are the stuff of our social world in addition to our use of nature. To Schulkin, the view of nature and social thought is replete with both competition and cooperation in the fight for survival. Nature is also spectacular and one ought to be awestruck by Nature, humbled and invigorated by Nature’s great power and beauty. But through nature we must also reflect our social sensibilities; and two of such social arenas are our economic and political decision-making thrusts in domestic and foreign policies.

It is thus, the quest for how best one group or state’s interest circumvents the processes of resource allocation that impels conflicts. And it is this ugly situation that should be digust to political and social theorists and good spirited practitioners. Sequel to this, Hughes and Kroehler opine that, “The conflict theory of social equality holds that [interest] stratification exists because it benefits individuals, groups or states, which have the [political, economic and social] power to dominate and exploit others” [21]. Directly opposed to this view is the functionalists’ opinion that, man in his society has commonalities to share. Thus, whereas the functionalists stress the common interests that members and actors of society share, conflict theorists focus on the interests that divide people. Viewed from the conflict perspective, “…society is an arena in which people struggle for privileges, prestige, and power; and advantaged groups enforce their advantages over the disadvantaged through coercion” [22].

The contradiction, existing in contemporary societies, between these two groups of thinkers, probably gave birth to the lyrics of a little song, which was taught in the then British colonial curriculum in the former West Cameroon primary education system. The song ran thus: Fire on the mountain, run, and run, run! Fire on the mountain, run, run, run!! This sung was usually sung to enkindle pupils at the beginning of a hectic day of education activities. Teachers, as well as pupils, loved that little sung not only because it aroused their interest in their daily academic tasks, but it also awakened dull pupils to sharpen their brains and created in them great senses of patriotism and nationalism. Indeed, the sung greatly facilitated the enlisting of many of our primary schoolmates into Cameroon’s armed forces. So, singing this sung today, might rather remind us of the imminent catastrophe of a spill-over of the obdurate Niger Delta’s conflict into the Bakassi Peninsula and the disruption of the relative peace and security in Cameroon and in other parts of the Gulf of Guinea. It will not necessarily be reminding us of the awakening of pupils and teachers as it was the case in the then West Cameroon education system.

As a participant observant, if one imagines and shares the callous inhuman destruction of human and material resources in Nigeria’s Niger Delta zone, one would immediately want to prevent the collapse of the prevailing relative peace and security in Cameroon. Considering that, there is a brewing ‘fire on the mountain’ or what Combs [19] calls, “a preliminary tremor” which is eminent not only in the Bakassi Peninsula but in the entire Gulf of Guinea. The thought of an actual conflict anywhere in Cameroon, evokes the loudest singing of that little sung to whoever will hear and understand it. In fact, given the already rising threat to national and international security from the bourgeoning MEND, NDA and NDRC in the Nigeria’s Niger Delta and its likely contagious effects unto the people of the Bakassi Peninsula, there is great need to understand that little song. Furthermore, besides these groups, the Southern Cameroons National Council (SCNC) a separatist group seeking secession from the rest of Cameroon contends that, there is strong complicity between the Cameroon government and multi-national oil companies to throw infinitesimal projects here and there in Bakassi Peninsula, only to rob them of their indigenous resources.

Given the International Court of Justice (ICJ) judgment at The Hague on 10th December, 2002, the retroceded territory of Bakassi to Cameroon’s sovereignty may, after all, not portend a safe haven for good business, at least for now. Between 2002 and 2017, the indigenous people of the Bakassi Peninsula claim to be getting exasperated with what they call ‘Cameroon government’s infamous lethargies towards national development’. On the other hand, the people feel that the Nigerian state, with a good measure of democracy, betrayed them by relinquishing its sovereignty over the Peninsula into Cameroon’s harsh dictatorship [20]. Hence they may be grouping to mount an internecine conflict against the oil companies and Cameroon government at the detriment of national and international security, especially in the Gulf of Guinea.

“If the partnership between the Cameroon state and the licensed multi-national oil companies which extract crude oil from the Bakassi Peninsula fails to respect the exigencies of social responsibility, the Bakassi Peninsula might soon witness its own toll of crisis beyond the dimensions of the one in the Nigeria’s Niger Delta,” [21]. Speaking further, [23] notes that, “...already some people in the Bakassi Peninsula with the complicity of the Niger Delta militants are gathering momentum to enlist volunteers for training in the ranks of the militant groups in Nigeria’s Niger Delta”. Thus, another very strong philosophical inclination purports that “…the Nigeria’s Niger Delta crisis might certainly become a veritable fertile training ground for militancy among the people of the Bakassi Peninsula in Cameroon, given the timid development initiatives of the French-backed Cameroon government in that zone” [24].

Whether it is accepted it or not, wrestling out better livelihoods from what the people consider their ‘traditional soil’ and considering that there is an inherent political and economic survival instinct in man, the autochthonous occupants of most resource-prune localities usually become intricately induced to violence against their states and the trans-national companies, where dialogue does not exist or fails. Often, the result of the tempo of such violence usually becomes irreconcilably and irrevocably great threat to national and international peace and security. In Nigeria, the people of the Niger Delta, who are naturally very close neighbors to the people of Bakassi Peninsula in Cameroon, have, for several years, wrestled in shooting battles over their social, political and economic livelihoods in their land, through the use of armed civil disobedience against the state – Nigeria and the multi-national oil companies?

And being close neighbors to Cameroon, the possibility of contagious effects, sympathies or revenge for losing a highly prized territory to what Bengasi, calls “Small Cameroon,” could be combined to facilitate the propulsion of insurgency in the Bakassi Peninsula. Perhaps, given what Alachua refers to as, “…the sluggish-half-hearted character of development adopted by the French-backed Cameroon government in the zone,” the inception of conflict may not be farfetched” [25]. The contentions raised hereinafter might create many groups of people, namely: those who adore falsehood rather than truth and who may consider this article as being pessimistic and alarmist; and those who sincerely adore truth and who might immediately stir the Cameroon State and its business partners – the oil companies into making haste while the sun shines toward the aspirations of the aggrieved indigenous communities in Cameroon [26]. Yet another group of people, the docile or advocates of dictatorship, may lean on brushing away these contentions in what this group may call, ‘the rattling of an intellectual,’ who should suffer reprisals for daring to highlight an impending conflict or better still, who would accused this author of insinuating violence rather to accept that, we are providing safety philosophical measures against violence in Cameroon’s emerging democracy.

Politics, security and Cameroon’s Bakassi Peninsula: Thorny issues in conflict management and prevention for policy making in Africa

In their work entitled, The Canon and Its Critics: A Multi- Perspective Introduction to Philosophy, Todd and Avilla posit that, “Although not the first philosopher, Socrates is a pivotal figure in the history of philosophy, as he left an important legacy that continues to shape the practice of philosophy and man’s political, economic and social consciousness,”. Given as philosophy holds, a self-unexamined life is always not worthy of living”. Certainly, the self-examination of one’s or group’s beliefs and actions are part of an uncompromising and careful pursuit of the truth, be it at individual, group or national level, obviously remains a permanent cornerstone of a life well lived. “Today’s philosophizing, along with centuries of preceding philosophies, are valued critical reflections and self-evaluations, even when they lead to skepticisms or the rejections of comforting illusions, which represent acts of statesmanship,” assert Todd and Avilla [27]. Thus, lives of individuals or nations built on honest, careful, pragmatic, rather than idealistic, wishful thinking in the pursuit of truths are more likely to be intrinsically better than lives shrouded by clouds of confusion, supercilious secrecies, blatant falsehoods, pretentiousness and the obscurity of intentional acts.

Certainly, Cameroon as a country must keep its secrets, but such secrets must be that, which if exposed, would create human and material damages to the existence of the country. But at this juncture, the Bakassi Peninsula time-bomb scenario must appear far from being a secret, because by so doing, we entrust human lives and material conditions unto untold peril. Thus, in search of that truth, the truth which must be nurtured only by conscience, a conscience which must thickly prevail over the self-seeking struggle for political and economic resources; an examination of the contending issues in conflicts situations and their global consequences in such cases as the Niger’s Delta crisis and the adjourning Bakassi Peninsula should prevail. Accordingly, we must be impelled as scholars, to infer on occurrences, be they remote or immediate; in order to predict imminent sources of conflicts and proffer solutions. These might include the parties involved, the immediate or remote social relationships which they entertain, the needs, interests, values and, if possible, the overriding ideologies that must serve as impediments to effective communication and collaborative networking toward amicable settlements. In the absence of this exercise, especially for the emerging Bakassi zone, the world would rise only to intervene; and this time, not between Nigeria and Cameroon, but between Cameroonians.

Thus, according to Onu, [14] “…man should seriously be concerned at any political, economic and social issues that raise dust in society, be it in developed or emerging states,”. These concerns must largely weigh on the interest of the vulnerable innocent people, who remain the primary negative recipients of effects of crisis energized by the exploitative activities of national compradors and their global partners – the multinational oil companies. Of course, these companies would not be perturbed, insofar as they are protected by the ‘inadequate’ (inadequate, because military might not be able to surpass the peoples’ sovereign mass action, as the case of the Philippines, under Ferdinand Marcus illustrates) military might of the state. One clear fact is that the multinational companies are strongly propelled by capitalist instincts, especially in Africa’s political, economic and social landscapes. Given these instincts, these oil giants would not want to lose a dime as a consequence of their respect for the so-called ‘social responsibility or any so-called internal civil disobediences’. To this direction, they provide heavily paid military assistance to secure their investment in African countries.

As a result, as they scoop huge profits, which are exported to their metropolis, with hardly any proclivity to plough back part of it into the livelihoods of the indigenous communities, thus the roots of crises are entrenched. Cameroon’s deployment of an elite armed forces unit – the Brigade d ’Intervention Rapides (BIR) or Rapid Intervention Brigade in the Bakassi Peninsula, including the massive security and logistic support from sections of the international community, are laudably pertinent security checks but not adequate to deter a people’s avowed determination to own fair shares from the resources from their soil. Certainly, the praxis of evil might be already at work, because, the very international actors in the Niger Delta conflict are becoming the paragons of cankerous discourses in the Bakassi Peninsula. In Nigeria, even as the late Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua extended an ‘olive branch’ to the militants in the form of an amnesty, the conflict continues. Accordingly, one of the leaders of the Movement for Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) Otomi, sarcastically retorted in the Nigerian Guardian Newspaper, of 19th March, 2009, that, “…the government is giving amnesty for what and to whom? What crime have we committed to be given amnesty? We want well-paying jobs, eradication of hunger, poverty, good roads, decent homes and respect for our biodiversity and ecosystem. The oil belongs to us first before other Nigerians, so our rights must be respected by both the Nigerian state and the monstrous oil companies, else the fighting, destruction and bloodletting will continue”.

In the Bakassi Peninsula, “…the indigenous people appear at the moment non-violent, since their central wish is that Cameroon government should peacefully ensure that the resources extracted from the Bakassi Peninsula serve the progress of their indigenous communities” posits. Of-course, the development of the Bakassi Peninsula should not be isolated from the surrounding communities too. It will be a very effective security weapon, rather than a weakness to primarily identify agitators, know their demands and draw an inclusive and workable developmental schema for the zone with them. There must be an assessment of the full needs of the indigenous people, rather than imposing government formulated programmes on them. No matter the imposed character of development envisaged for the Peninsula, it is unattractive not to involve local participation, especially the local youths; traditional, political and economic leaders in the Peninsula in any development scheme. Not doing so will promote angry youth social forces, who would be irked by their-none employability and exclusion.

Social forces, the Bakassi Peninsula, national and global security

Talking of social forces, this is a collectivity of individual persons who are organized for political, economic or social actions. It is a common term that embraces interest groups, pressure groups, associations, social classes and non-social class categories. Thus, a social force could be organized for the maintenance of the status quo or the dislocation of such status quo. A non-class category, like an ethnic group, can transform itself into a social force, although not every social class is necessarily a social force. A social force is more or less what is termed civil society in broader senses, because this includes the totality of all individuals and groups in society, who are not acting as participants in any government institutions, nor acting in the interests of commercial firms, but have “…developed institutions to participate actively in political and social life”.

Similarly, a social movement is a collectivity – a group of persons committed to a transformation of the social order. Invariably, social movements are always ever interested in ground-breaking changes and, in most cases, social forces attempt to determine the inputs and outputs of social institutions, which, by extension, determine the interplay of political, economic and social power. Thus, power is a byproduct of the interplay of social forces and by implication power is a social commodity, which must be held in confidence and briefly too; with the consent of all social forces. Thus, its confiscation (political power) might generate serious social tensions of political, economic and social upheavals of national or even international dimensions in societies. The structural functional character of social institutions actually produces the faces of society. Societal functionalism (a variety of structural functionalism that focuses on the large-scale social structures and institutions of society, their interrelationships and their constraining effects on actors) play crucial roles in the production of particular societies. Ignoring the role of social forces in a given social setting may present strong preludes to the production of devastating social, political, economic and cultural consequences for a people. This might be what the Cameroon government with the complicity of the international community, may be implanting in the Bakassi Peninsula, by adopting a surrogated development schema that excludes the indigenous people of the zone.

Secondly, the international community is usually more predisposed in playing substantive roles in enlightening national governments in providing what Clark calls “democratic development”. But in the case of the Bakassi Peninsula, the quick quest to garner control over the huge deposits of the natural resources in the Gulf of Guinea, which hosts the Bakassi Peninsula, might be blindfolding these national and international actors towards averting future conflict in the zone. People and the massive availability of social and economic infrastructures, not massive amassing troops and ammunitions alone, must comprise the security networking of a place like the Bakassi Peninsula. The international community may want to protect its interests in a zone like Bakassi, without sufficiently recognizing that the local people hold a superior interest, which they can manifest and successfully too, and mostly through multifaceted traditional methods, which constantly escape the reach of national governments and international oil actors.

The story of Nigeria’s Niger Delta conflict, particularly the pathetic destruction of human and material resources owned by Nigeria and its allies – the multinational companies, by the various militant groups should be food for thought to the Cameroon government and the international partners in addressing the Bakassi Peninsula development strategies (BPDS). Ignoring the hard lessons arising from Nigeria’s Niger Delta conflict is to attract narrow-mindedness in dealing with a large policy security problem such as the development of the Bakassi Peninsula. Sincerely, postmodernism, which internationalism or globalization attempts to propagate should be informative and beneficial to the various actors engaged in the Bakassi scheme and development narrative, to draw the road map towards international peace and security. “A type of society that is continuous with modern social structures that inculcates traditional views of local people should characterize rational systematic discourses and efforts to develop a model of postmodern society” retorts Ritzer. Bakassi is still in its embryo in terms of development and the degree of assertiveness of the indigenous population. Of course, concerned national and international security stakeholders – the African Union, United Nations, ECOWAS and C.E.M.A.C, including Cameroon and Nigerian governments, must not take these hard realities for granted by minimizing the on-the-ground proclivity of the local inhabitants to encourage insurgencies.

What we are projecting here is the adherence to social facts, which according to Durkheim, “…are the subject matter of life itself. Social facts remain solid and must be treated as things that are external to and coercive over, individuals, groups and states and which must be studied empirically”. In fact, the international community had over several decades ignored the usefulness of; and the uselessness of social forces in the Arab world. Today, the world is panting to curb their excesses in what is called international terrorism. It is therefore pertinent, if not extremely useful to curb the rise of social forces in the African continent, especially with the awakening and assertive character of the people of Niger Delta in Nigeria, whose influence might subtly be engaging their neighboring brothers and sisters in Cameroon’s Bakassi Peninsula,. The large military forces and sophisticated security surveillances installed in the zone are appreciable, but grossly inadequate to deter mass uprising. The Cameroon government and international community must forcefully engage into substantive rationality in dealing with the laws, activities and roles of various stakeholders and social movements involved in the character of the development schema for the Bakassi Peninsula.

Thus, social movements are very significant actors in the international system, as their activities account for the dynamism or lethargy in the global security system to prevent or not to prevent conflicts, maintain peace and security and to promote genuine globalization. Social movements maintain intrinsic relationships with the process of transformation or none transformation, that is, they are usually pre-occupied and get intricately committed to a revolutionary change in the social order. Usually, they have semi-formal structures, that is, they do not possess hierarchical set of offices and their own command structure and decision-making processes are casual or better still mutually exclusive. Social movements appear not to be deterred even when their head or leader becomes inactive. Thus, they are equally enduring and so are likely to last long. By this brief description of a social movement, a social group that exists for only a short duration cannot be truly described as a social movement. Of course, there exist norms or rules of conduct which guide the behaviour of members of social movements, and they are mostly very loyal and this distinguishes them from none or itinerant memberships.

Actually, social movements possess clear and well-defined ideologies, religiously committed follower-ships, with strict death or life set of principles that distinguish correctness from incorrectness in relations to the execution of specific issues and goals at stake. Above all, they usually have a manageable size of membership, which are intricately distributed in whatever zone they wish to reach, no matter the intensity of government’s security networking. To be precise, the successes and failures of social movements or groups to execute their goals largely depend on their ability to garner traditional methods of organizations, rather than on Western arms technology. It is also the inability of governments and the international community to secure the facilities of traditional methods of curbing conflicts that causes states’ failures in curbing insecurity where social forces are in motion. For instance, “…the protracted cases of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) and its leadership in Ugandan State and the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Army (SPLA) are indicative”. These instances can also serve the Cameroon government and the international community in mapping out durable development strategies for Bakassi in order to avert the scheme that promotes individual and group grudges, in the name of collective interest, by disingenuous organizations in such places as the Niger Delta and Bakassi Peninsula.

On the other hand, multi-national oil corporations that operate in the Niger Delta, such as Total, Elf, Shell, Chevron, Agip, Mobil and so on, are generally known to have been partly responsible for the generation and escalation of the conflict in the Nigeria’s Niger Delta, through their lack of concern for working with social forces and the respect of social responsibility obligations. Undoubtedly, these same companies are scheming or are already doing business with the Cameroon government in extracting crude oil in the Bakassi Peninsula. According to Onuoha, the oil companies represent the worst form of evil”, of which both the Nigerian and Cameroon governments must dissuade from behaving irresponsibly to the aspirations of local communities. If this dissuasion is not perfect and effective it will be translated by the various social forces as an unholy alliance between the state and these exploitative oil corporations.

The contentions will be that, the state benefits from the enormous money that comes from the oil companies, and so the state pampers the oil companies by not putting them to task on their irresponsiveness and irresponsible activities. The social forces will narrate that, the state has failed to cater for people’s concerns arising from gas flaring, oil spillage, and general environmental destruction and the attendant health hazards. These hazards are always coupled with impelling the level of poverty and unemployment including the physical underdevelopment of the region. These consequences are usually manifested in frustration and aggressive inclination of the citizens to violence, who consider themselves exploited by the state and its international accomplices. For instance, “…the people of Niger Delta feel alienated because for them, the multi-national oil firms operating on their soil are not actively involved in the provision or the respect of corporate social responsibilities (CSR), which the United Nations Global Compact requires of companies”.

Thus, some protagonists and apologists of the Nigerian federal state system seem to have portrayed the multi-national companies as engaging in profitable corporate social responsibility for the host communities. But “…this position is more or less false in the eyes of the indigenous people,” states Utete a native of Itsekiri in Rivers State of Nigeria, with whom this author had a direct interview. He contends that, such an impression merely raises false consciousness in the people, since the people call it, “…the politics of reward and communal growth projects, which have served in most cases only to ambush and neutralize the peoples’ potential benefits”. Accordingly, “Studies have shown that not only have oil companies in Nigeria paid compensation at rates far lower than internationally accepted standards, but they have also attempted to; and actually avoided payments of such compensation on frivolous grounds”. This attitude therefore sets the pace for incessant and grave violence. As Omotola contends, “…one of such escapist strategy is to attribute oil spillages to sabotage for which the local people may not actually be culpable but through which they are denied rights to compensation”. Due to the suspicions that the local people are involved in spilling oil, in some instances, these oil companies only pay compensation to the local communities after years of protracted court cases that are usually very costly for the local community. As such cases protract, the government sets itself indifferent or at worse employs armed forces to quell violence, forgetting that “…violence only begets violence”.

And as Omotola stresses,“…the timid community development projects which multi-national oil companies locate in the local communities where crude oil is extracted are largely motivated by the interest to foster large-scale capitalist expansionism and appropriation of surplus value by the oil investors and not by the immediate needs to develop the local communities. For example, a road, as narrow as it might be is constructed and/or rehabilitated only where and when it is directly related to the companies’ activities. In this wise, certain areas are completely avoided for any sort of development or is it modernization of the totality of the land from where the mass of oil producing takes place”.

In Cameroon’s Bakassi Peninsula situation, the neighbouring communities of Ndian, Meme, Fako and Manyu and even those Divisions in the North West, Littoral and West Regions of the country are the catchment areas of the Bakassi Peninsula. The development of this zone must of necessity therefore be extended to these divisions and regions, though Ndian being the focal division must come first. For instance, the people of Bafaka-Balue in Ndian Division hosted the reconnaissance/security apparatuses, which assisted in securing the Peninsula during the intensive military activities between Nigeria and Cameroon over the oil rich peninsula from 1981 to 2002. Certainly, during the same period, a strong detachment of Cameroon military personnel comprising French soldiers, with a blending of Cameroonian soldiers were rotationally stationed at the Bafaka-Balue village within the Bakassi precincts.

The social effects of the presence of these Frenchmen in this village is the numerous half-casts or mix-blooded children in that village, whose two parents, are not easily indefinable, as the Frenchmen have all been repatriated to other French military bases either in Cameroon or in other parts of Africa. Thus, neglecting this village for any eventual plan to develop the Bakassi Peninsula will attract disrespectfulness to corporate social responsibility. Certainly, the Bafaka-Balue village is several kilometers away from the vocal point of the peninsula, although it remains a very important point in the entire security network of Cameroon and the Bakassi Peninsula. Other important localities in Ndian Division are the Ekondo-Titi and Mundemba towns, which suffered great social, economic and even political devastations as a result of the conflict over the Bakassi Peninsula. It will be inglorious not to bring massive development efforts to these communities from the resources from the Bakassi Peninsula. The Cameroon state should from the onset avoid frivolous projects aimed at momentarily attracting the interest of the unsuspecting local population and the international community, because according to Marx in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, “…it is this sort of economic exploitation that provokes the social unrests that attracts massive crack down of military against the unarmed citizens by insensitive states authorities”.

Certainly, a state engaging into such naivety against its people only builds trenches of war. Thus, according to Fanon “…such a state can only delay emancipation, but cannot stop it”. But it is generally known that governments of most developing countries, especially those emerging from France’s colonialism, are not development driven and so they dreadfully delay emancipation, hence France created the conditions under which Frantz Fanon wrote. Given this, “…some of the so-called development projects in the various Bakassi communities have been known to be sub-standard as they would hardly yield additional benefits to the local people,” declares. This is because the government usually awards primitive building contracts for the realization of these projects to not-too-perfect surrogates contractors, who are adherents of the ruling political party, rather than to genuine builders and in the exclusion of the leaders of the concerned local communities. And because the state is an interested partner in underdevelopment of the locality, it goes without bothering to ascertain how perfect or imperfect the work is carried out.

In Nigeria, the multi-national companies equally contribute to the deepening crisis of insecurity in the Niger Delta through public relations, publicity and propaganda, and mostly through the use of public relations consultants. This happened in the case of the Ogoni people after the uprising that generated international condemnation. According to Frynas, “…to date, the company maintains a cutting-edge website, and sponsors newspapers advertorials and television programmes among other public relations activities”. Finally, these oil companies have also acted violently with the active connivance of the Nigerian state in escalating the Niger Delta crisis, a lesson that must be learnt by the Cameroon state, if sleep is to arrive to the eyes of its security outfits in the peninsula. “The usual security outfits that the state provides to protect oil installations and workers are mere ad hoc or fire brigade measures of security, which are certainly less enduring to the provision of durable life sustaining projects, such as good housing units, good portable water, electricity, good road network, good healthcare system, good education system, a highly mechanized agricultural frameworks and industrialization. Historically, no amount of sophistication of a country’s armed forces has ever deterred the peoples’ will to use their sovereignty to overturn a political regime. Political regimes essentially act only on behalf of the people, who in the terms enacted in the Social Contract can change the regime if its services no longer serve the interests of the people”.

Certainly, besides the security services provided by the Nigerian state, evidence abounds showing that the multi-national oil companies also recruit private security companies to secure their installations. While the existence of these forces may not be problematic per se, especially given the volatility that has come to characterize the Nigeria’s Niger Delta zone, their use and misuse to harass, intimidate and suppress environmental rights activists have raised questions about their existence. It is not out of place to state that this is one of the reasons why the Nigeria’s Niger Delta crisis has for long been burning and may not be resolved in the nearest future. Therefore, it is important that Cameroon takes a cue from the mistakes from Nigeria and its international partners, in the development task for the Bakassi Peninsula. But, as a peripheral capitalist state still crawling under the tutelage of its former colonial master – France, “…the degree of influence that France spells over Cameroon’s political, economic, social and even cultural resources,” would hardly permit any full blown government collaboration with any indigenously inspired rapid development efforts in the Bakassi Peninsula.

Rather, as Mowitz alludes, France will on the surface advice the Cameroon government to implant a highly equipped military force, backed by highly sophisticated military hardware and training from France, since this too will bolster France’s national economy. This deployment in the peninsula with the pretext of wading off intruders from the neighboring Niger Delta conflict, he adds “…will certainly garner much economic resources for France’s economy,” he retorts. One school of thought has always bothered to fret with the notion that, France is a good friend (Master) of Cameroon only in terms of providing military training to Cameroon’s army, and not for the development of Cameroon’s impoverished population. Thus, according to this school, the hidden agenda in such a relationship grows only to cloak and conceal immoral sensitivity of France’s economic installations in Cameroon in general and in particular in the Bakassi Peninsula. Ironically, “…despite the huge capital investment which France has in Nigeria, France can hardly enter into any military pact with Nigeria” asserts.

Undoubtedly, “France has never hidden its exploitative character over Cameroon’s resources, since in Cameroon, France only harvests without planting any serious ‘crops,’ while in countries like Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Ivory Coast and so on; it plants highly yielding seeds and does bumper harvests, which it ploughs again into these countries”. For instance, France’s Air France uses its own skyscrapers as offices in Port-Harcourt and Lagos with a multitude of highly trained and well remunerated local support staff. But in Cameroon, Air France has just a simple single apartment with merely a handful of local illtrained employees. France, has a full-fledged Institute of Petroleum Studies, attached to the University of Port-Harcourt in Nigeria, managed in collaboration with TOTAL, ELF and the University of Port-Harcourt, while in Cameroon, it does not have even an evening training school for recycling of its oil workers whose outlooks are miserable in Total and Elf stations. In fact, France’s exploitative instances in Cameroon are plentiful, which are actually not the subject matter of this work, but which are necessary for the clarity of the theoretical and empirical analysis of this article – the premise of human needs satisfaction or not.

The Nigeria’s Niger delta crisis and its implications for Cameroon’s Bakassi Peninsula: the globalization view and human needs theory

In order to fully understand the imminent crisis in the Bakassi Peninsula, an additional theoretical understanding of the crisis in the Niger Delta is very germane. Hereinafter, the globalization view in international relations postulated by George Ritzer will be used to illuminate our thesis. According to Ritzer, “Globalization implies the imperialistic ambitions of nations, multi-national corporations and organizations, and the likes; their desires, indeed, their urge to acquire human needs for self-satisfaction, which pushes these corporations to impose themselves on the various geographical areas in the world”. Accordingly, “…any discourse on the relationship between multinational corporations and resource-rich regions of the world, like the Niger Delta of Nigeria [and the Bakassi Peninsula in Cameroon], shows that, not only are such discourses sophisticated in character but also ruthless, hegemonic, secretive, exploitative, treacherous, greedy, opportunistic, criminalized, violent and corrupt in nature”. Thus, the foregoing appear to be the various signposts that accompany these multinational companies, when trying to understand their activities in developing countries like Nigeria, Cameroon, and elsewhere.

As said earlier, it is important to admit that apart from their exploitative activities, these multi-national companies play vital roles in the modernization of local communities from where they extract natural resources. Although this acknowledgement cannot be universalized, Ikelegbe, believes that,“…firstly, a few multi-national corporations contribute positively to economic expansion of their host communities, by being the major agents of direct foreign investment; capital flow and massive employment providers. They contribute to economic production, efficiency, manpower development, higher managerial skills, employment opportunities, technology transfer including sometimes, incomes some degree of philanthropic activities, such sponsorship of sports, provision of water, electricity and so on. Also, through taxation, royalties, rents and fees, considerable economic impact is made upon most local economic undertakings,”.

But at what cost and return on investment are all these services provided vis-a-vis the quantity and quality of resources extracted from local communities in developing countries? Said otherwise, are these investments really proportionate to the volume of resources extracted and ecological degradation occasioned by these oil companies upon the local citizens? Meanwhile, is it plausible, if not to misuse the term ‘development’ to say that multi-national oil companies develop the localities from where they extract crude oil? How many of such localities can boast of science and technology, real economic productivity bases and human development capacities, in the degree these exist in their home countries of these multi-national companies? we think it is reasonable to agree with Inkeles and Smith, that, “these multinationals rather encourage a bit of modernization of those localities” than to talk of development.

Secondly, even as we argue that these oil companies actually produce negative consequences during their extraction activities in developing countries, it is equally true that to an extent, they implant huge capital formations in these countries, whereby jobs are provide for the locals. However, the pillages of natural resources and exploitation of cheap labor is antithetical to the host country’s growth needs, and this represents some of the roots of conflicts. Thirdly, despite the negative behavior of these multi-national corporations from an idealist point of view, the huge capital investments and technology, which they provide, cannot positively impact on the livelihood of the local population. This is evident in the current scheme of things in the people of Niger Delta in terms of enhancing industrialization and development; in spite of the advantage the people may want to take advantage of the presence of these multinational corporations. Thus, the usual expectations from these companies fall short of what they actually do on ground, since their arrival and implantation immediately evokes harsh memories of colonialism and subjugation, rather than partnership and affection. So, conflicts become the key option in curbing their excesses, minimizing perverseness and benefits, influencing policies and regulating their conduct.

However, no matter the perspective one might take to provide understanding to the relationship that exists between multinational corporations, the states and their citizens in developing countries, the central argument is that multinational companies constitute major agents of economic exploitation and conflicts. The case of Nigeria’s Niger Delta and the likely incorporation of the Bakassi Peninsula into its share of conflicts are valedictory. Therefore, if measures are not taken to correct the activities of these companies through the strengthening of national policies in favour of the local population from the onset, the continuous probabilities of engulfing into crisis may not be in doubts and far-fetched.

For instance, as Watche, observes,“…since 1958 when oil was discovered at Oloibiri in Ogbia Local Government of the present day Bayelsa State in Nigeria - a core area of the Niger Delta region, in large and commercial quantities, successive military and civilian governments in Nigeria have failed to provide the most basic of needs to the Niger Delta people, in spite of the huge wealth accruing from the region, for which Nigeria prides itself globally as the eighth largest producer of petroleum resources, and which has so been in close collaboration with multinational oil companies”.

As Watche continues, “The Niger Delta region accounts for over 90% of Nigeria’s proven gas and oil reserves, while the Bakassi Peninsula may equal or surpass that percentage for the Cameroon government. The failure in the leaderships of the Nigerian State has occasioned the fight by the people to take their destiny into their own hands, thus prompting the most vicious and pernicious kind of violence in Nigeria, since after the thirty-months civil war (1967-1970) in that country”.

Certainly, these precarious situations would have made the Nigerian state to understand and look into the peoples’ predicaments, but as a third world government, remedying the situation has appeared too tumultuous, thereby paving the leeway to seriously threaten national and international peace and security. In fact, Nigeria’s Niger Delta people believe they have been maliciously excluded from any gainful participation in the oil industry, since as they claim “…none of their able-bodied – that is, qualified sons and daughters are freely recruited by these multinational companies operating in their land”. As Agbo further notes: “the exploration of oil wells in their backyard are awarded to people who are predominantly from non-oil-producing states, who exploit their land without regard for its owners”.

As the Nigerian presidency continue to dole out oil licenses as it pleases, and the henchman of the President doubles as the Minister of Petroleum Resources; meanwhile, the owners of the land from where the oil is extracted wallow in abject neglect in an abused environment and the youths are driven to crime, which is obviously a stupid means of survival. Thus, there is violence in the Nigeria’s Niger Delta as a result of government’s complicity with multinational oil companies against the local population. As a result, the Nigeria’s Niger Delta conflict situation is generally aggravated by the peoples’ extreme poverty, disenfranchisement, mass unemployment, massive underdevelopment and the easy availability of firearms into the midst of abundant wealth.

Given these, the possibility of one armed group fighting another over the control of illegally acquired oil through bunkering and to engage into violent acts against oil companies, such as kidnapping officials of the numerous oil companies in the zone, is rife. Thus, the conflict in Nigeria’s Niger Delta started in four phases with the grievance by host communities against their perceived oppressors – the Nigerian State and the multinational oil companies. In the first three phases, the demands focused on compensations for damages, provision of certain basic amenities, employment, scholarships, and so on. As a result of the failure of the State to come to their assistance and ultimately becoming conscious of the collaboration between the state and the oil companies, the people lost confidence in the state. Hence, the resistance assumed a militant form in response to the violence of the state security forces. This loss of confidence also led to the demand for autonomy and resource control. Furthermore, various authors have identified the causes of the conflict in the Niger Delta and have thus grouped them into historical, economic, political, ethnic, religious and environmental, all falling under the banner of human needs theory. As a complement to the foregoing, Ibeano notes that, “understanding the persistence of conflicts in the Niger Delta necessitates a review of the historical development of the oil industry in Nigeria”.

Obviously, whole communities have watched their lands eroded away through the activities of multi-national oil companies, as fishing and farming, the traditional occupations of these people, are no longer viable therein. In Cameroon’s Bakassi Peninsula, despite the current impoverishment of the citizenry, fiscal policies are strictly implemented to the chagrin of the poor inhabitants. Thus, this situation heightens the poverty paradox, hunger and desperation among these people who merely struggle to eke out livelihoods. Given this, most people believe that, the injustice in the complex and volatile relationship that exists between multi-national companies and the communities in Niger Delta region has been largely ignored by scholars. And we contend that, important as issues of corporate governance are, as they relate to the host peoples; they have not been critically analyzed in terms of how they underpins contestations, disputes, conflicts, violence, corruption, social incoherencies, militarization, repressions, poverty and restiveness. Thus, even the critical review of relations and policy as to how these affect human livelihoods; local governance, socio-economic aspirations and the growth and enabling of local economies are completely neglected. Ofcourse, it is unequivocal that, justice is the strongest, most reliable and ultimate bedmate for peace and stability, since social, political and economic justice obviously fashions a peoples’ worldview.

This article has explored and exposed the nitty-gritty of the possibilities of spillover of Nigeria’s Niger Delta obdurate conflict into Cameroon’s Bakassi Peninsula. Essentially, it relied on the lame-duck development character orchestrated by the Cameroon Government in the Bakassi Peninsula since Cameroon acquired sovereignty over the zone in 2002. Given this, it sought to analyze the compelling factors of zones’ proximity, the roles of dominant actors: - the character of the post-colonial African state - the role of multi-national oil corporations and - the impatience of indigenous communities in the Niger Delta. Consequently, the article discerned that, the social, economic and political conditions encountered by the Niger Delta indigenes, and the gains made by these indigenes, through rebellion against the Nigerian State and its oil exploration partners are apt to prompt the people of Bakassi Peninsula into insurgency, because, the Bakassi people encounter similar issues. Additionally, it was recognized that currently, the Nigerian State, multi-national oil corporations and the Niger Delta indigenes are entangled in the Niger Delta conflict due to the skewed human needs/resource allocation formula in Nigeria. Thus, while the indigenes accuse the Nigerian state of insensitive connivance with multi-national oil corporations to nefariously exploit crude oil resources from their indigenous land, without addressing their socioeconomic plight, the Nigerian state accuses the indigenes of irresponsible rebellion.

Hereinafter, using John Burton’s Human Needs Theory, Gaetano Mosca’s elite theory in public policy-making and Karl Marx’s dialectical materialism as analytical tools, we argued that, only an equitably indigenously inspired policies and institutionalized resource mobilization and allocation formula, can forestall any resource-based conflict in Cameroon and safe the Gulf of Guinea from internecine warfare. Within the foregoing, we exposed with strong theoretical and empirical evidences that, multinational companies play negative roles of generating conflicts in Africa. Given the sort of evidence adduced thereafter, we drew the attention of the various stakeholders to peace and stability in the Gulf of Guinea by prescribing relevant ways of averting the impending conflict in Bakassi Peninsula.

Finally, we assert and insist that, in the Gulf of Guinea, the current stakes in Niger Delta might replicate in the Bakassi Peninsula; and this should be of great concern to stakeholders in peace, justice and security. Thus, should any argument arise that, Cameroon’s Bakassi Peninsula is tightly secured by internal and external military prowess; and that, it is copiously distanced from the Niger Delta and that, any contamination by the militancy from Niger Delta Conflict is unforeseeable; definitely, such argument merely saunters in a fool’s paradise. Thus, the earlier sound and expedient public and foreign policies thrusts are articulated and strategized in favour of genuine commitment for durable and sustainable modernization or pure development in the Bakassi Peninsula, the earlier peace, justice and stability are assured for Cameroon, Nigeria and the entire Africa’s Gulf of Guinea for the benefit of global well-being.