Nigeria, Benin re-draw border
2004-07-23 07:45
Abuja - Nigeria and its neighbour Benin on Thursday amicably resolved a dispute over their land and maritime boundary during a meeting in the Nigerian capital Abuja, officials said.
The dispute was resolved by a joint technical committee of the two countries after a four-day meeting.
"Generally speaking, the entire boundary between Nigeria and Benin has been amicably decided," the head of the Nigerian team on the committee, Dahiru Bobbo, said after the meeting.
The committee confirmed that there are seven Beninois villages being administered by Nigeria and three Nigerian villages presently under the sovereignty of Benin, Bobbo said.
All the markers for the 870km-long border had been recovered with the exception of those in three villages which were expected to be found within the next two months, he said.
The Nigerian Boundary Commission had earlier said the re-drawing of the boundary was necessary because most of the boundary markers used in 1912 and 1914, when Benin and Nigeria were still under colonial rule, were missing.
Benin was a French colony while Nigeria was ruled by Britain until 1960.
The meeting decided that Nigeria and Benin should begin the process of withdrawing from each other's territory, the official continued.
He said that the dispute over the maritime boundary was resolved by applying the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea which provides for equal distance between the parties in dispute.
The decisions of the committee are subject to the ratification by an inter-ministerial meeting of the two countries which was postponed from Wednesday to Thursday, and has now been moved forward to a date yet to be decided in August.
The Thursday session was postponed due to the absence of the Beninois ministerial delegation, Bobbo said.