Mr. William Ballentyne is an accomplished Legal Practitioner and historian. He contested election as a candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) for Calabar South, Akpabio and Bakassi Federal Constituency in Cross River State in 2011, “to give a voice to the aspirations of his neglected people.” In this chat with OKEE SYDNEY-OBIUKWU, he accuses the Nigerian State of failing the people of Bakassi, forcing them to team up with the English-speaking people of Southern Cameroun, to push for an “Ambazonia Republic.”

WHAT is the state of mind of the Bakassi people in terms of their fight for self-determination?

Congress for Progressive (CPC) has thrown its weight behind the quest for self-determination by the displaced people of Bakassi Peninsula whose territory is now under the sovereignty of the Republic of Cameroun.

CPC stated this against the recent announcement that some border communities in Cross River State are working with the people of Bakassi and Southern Cameroun to create a new Republic of Ambazonia.

Brethren,

Our sources indicate that Cameroon now find itself trapped (as it did when Ambazonia issued the Inter-pleader Summons forcing her to admit the Plebiscite as the legal tool that dismisses their claims of unity as silly and bogus in 1994 at the ICJ) and may have to drop the case against the Buea activist out of fear of the exposure of Cameroon as a foreign nation in Ambazonia. 

Cameroon had expected to charge the Buea activists with secession. Secession is a threat to the territorial integrity of Cameroon. It is a treasonable offence punishable with death by firing squad or hanging or lethal injection. 

TO THE NATION AND THE PEOPLE OF AMBAZONIA

HCB/28/92: An Originating summons with an ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE

WHY THIS PROCEDURE WAS ADOPTED: This procedure born of a very highly technical legal expertise was adopted so as to prevent Yaounde getting any judge to improperly intervene and throw out the case on some lame excuse.

An order to show Cause does not permit the judge to intervene in the process until defendant has filed an affidavit Showing Cause why the judge should intervene and either vary the order or set it aside.

The plaintiff’s process papers containing the Order to Show Cause specifies the number of days within which the defendant must Show Cause. Once the defendant is served with the process, it becomes a Court Judgment Nisi. That is to say, unless the defendant shows justification for the Court to intervene and set it aside or vary it.

So if the defendant fails to either enter an appearance or if after entering appearance he fails to show cause to justify the intervention of the judge then in that case what the plaintiff has filed automatically becomes a Court judgment absolute; without any act by a judge.