ECOWAS court urges NBC to resolve boundary dispute between Kogi, Enugu
The Community Court of Justice of ECOWAS in Abuja has urged the National Boundary Commission (NBC) to resolve a boundary dispute between Kogi and Enugu state involving Ette Community. Members of the community situated in Olamaboro LGA, in Kogi state had through one Raymond Oguche and 6 others sued the federal government before the court […]
The Community Court of Justice of ECOWAS in Abuja has urged the National Boundary Commission (NBC) to resolve a boundary dispute between Kogi and Enugu state involving Ette Community.
Members of the community situated in Olamaboro LGA, in Kogi state had through one Raymond Oguche and 6 others sued the federal government before the court over alleged violation of their rights.
They alleged that the government did nothing to protect them from a 2014 attacks by unidentified armed men who they alleged came from a community in Enugu state to dispossess them of their land.
They contended that neither Kogi nor Enugu can on its own determine the location of the territory (which was the subject of the 2014 attack) as being within their jurisdiction.
Delivering judgement in the suit on Wednesday, a three member panel of the court presided over by Justice Friday Chijioke Nwoke, held that Ette community by virtue of being a community under the state of Nigeria is clothed with the rights of a people to challenge the alleged violation of their rights under the African Charter.
The court however held that the substantive issue of the case bothered on an unresolved inter-state dispute between two ethnic groups under Nigerian states wherein the Supreme Court of Nigeria has ordered the matter to be revisited by the NBC with a view to finding amicable settlements to the boundary disputes.
“The responsibility to settle, demarcate and determine the true ownership of boundary disputes in Nigeria lies on the NBC. Boundary disputes are matters that are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of the defendant; to determine which people, parts of people and or place belong to its component parts.
“The court will be a busy body to delve into such matters bearing in mind Article 2(7) of the United Nations Charter which recognizes that matters of this nature is within the reserve domain which international law has no competence to deal with,” Justice Nwoke held.
The judge added that if the Supreme Court of Nigeria being the final arbiter in the case has ordered the parties involved to resort to the NBC, and did not demarcate the boundaries, “who is this court to do so on their behalf?”
Justice Nwoke held: “In view of the foregoing, the court holds that the alleged violation of Article 20 and 22 of the African Charter as raised by the plaintiff is unfounded,”
He added that the case is therefore inadmissible for not being within the human rights mandates of the court as it hinges on boundary dispute and it was therefore dismissed.