Bakassi Peninsula Handed to Cameroon

On August 14, 2008, Nigeria formally ceded sovereignty of the oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon, in compliance with the International Court of Justice ruling of October 10, 2002. The ceremony was held at the Akwa Palace in Calabar, with Nigerian and Cameroonian officials present.

The Bakassi dispute had been a decades-long territorial conflict between the two countries, rooted in colonial-era treaties. The ICJ ruled that the 1913 Anglo-German agreement placed Bakassi under Cameroon. Thousands of Nigerian residents were resettled from the peninsula.