[1] On 22 November 2007, the Nigerian Senate rejected the transfer, since the Greentree Agreement ceding the area to Cameroon was contrary to Section 12(1) of the 1999 Constitution.

In October 2012, China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation announced it had discovered new oil and gas resources in the Bakassi region.

[5] During the Scramble for Africa, Queen Victoria signed a Treaty of Protection with the King and Chiefs of Akwa Akpa, known to Europeans as Old Calabar, on 10 September 1884.

Nigeria and Cameroon have disputed the possession of Bakassi for some years,[quantify] leading to considerable tension between the two countries.

The line was drawn through the Cross River estuary to the west of the peninsula, thereby implying Cameroonian ownership over Bakassi.

The ICJ delivered its judgment on 10 October 2002, finding (based principally on the Anglo-German agreements) that sovereignty over Bakassi did indeed rest with Cameroon.

The outcome of the controversy was a de facto Nigerian refusal to withdraw its troops from Bakassi and transfer sovereignty.

The Nigerian government did not, however, openly reject the judgment but instead called for an agreement that would provide "peace with honour, with the interest and welfare of our people".

[9] The ICJ judgement was backed up by the United Nations, whose charter potentially allowed sanctions or even the use of force to enforce the court's ruling.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan stepped in as a mediator and chaired a tripartite summit with the two countries' presidents on 15 November 2002, which established a commission to facilitate the peaceful implementation of the ICJ's judgement.

Obasanjo agreed to withdraw Nigerian troops within 60 days and to leave the territory completely in Cameroonian control within the next two years.

The government took no action, and handed the final parts of Bakassi over to Cameroon on 14 August 2008 as planned, but a Federal High Court had stated this should be delayed until all accommodations for resettled Bakassians had been settled; the government did not seem to plan to heed this court order,[15] and set the necessary mechanisms into motion to override it.

[19] In the 2010s and 2020s, Biafran separatists, most importantly Biafra Nations League, still continue a low-level militant resistance against Cameroon in regards to Bakassi.