NIGERIA’S CHALLENGE TO AFRICA’S POST-COLONIAL BORDERS AND A REAPPRAISAL OF THE UTI POSSIDETIS JURIS DOCTRINE

Abstract

Establishment of colonialism in Africa was in breach of international law. When in 1885, European States at the Berlin Conference declared most of Africa as terra nullius, and the inhabitants incapable of governing themselves, they contradicted the existence of more than two centuries of trading relationship with the continent. Most colonial territories in Africa were acquired by agreements with African Chiefs and Kings under which colonialists guaranteed African leaders that the colonialist would extend her favour and protection to them. Colonialists extrapolated their rights under these treaties to sovereign powers and expropriated the territories they covenanted to protect. Acting as sovereigns, they made boundary treaties and demarcated their respective areas of influence. Recently, Nigeria expressed discontent with the artificiality of postcolonial African boundaries, and their divisive effect on African societies. The objective of this paper is an analysis of the nature of the doctrine of uti possidetis juris as a whole, and a general reappraisal of its application to postcolonial African borders. The methodology adopted is doctrinal. The paper relied on primary and secondary sources. These include writings of scholars and journal publications and articles, conference papers, books, case law comprised in the judgments of international and domestic tribunals, resolutions, treaties, declarations and other materials, both electronic and print. The methodology does not indicate any necessity for investigation of the details of boundary demarcations and the technicalities of border delineations: thus, the enquiry did not proceed in that direction. This paper theorised that application of uti possidetis juris to postcolonial African borders constituted an effort to ratify illicit colonial acquisition and demarcation of African territories. The paper found that the doctrine’s international law outlook developed in Latin America and was extended to Africa during decolonisation to transform administrative colonial borders into international boundaries at the date of independence. The paper argued that this practice ratified the absurdity of colonial borders which divided societies and confined disparate peoples into a single geographical space. The paper on examining recent instances of the doctrine’s application in Africa and outside Africa found that the doctrine seemed to have achieved an overarching presence so that its application was no longer limited to decolonisation situations. The paper then disclosed that the doctrine possessed severe shortcomings, concluded that its application in postcolonial Africa was improper, and recommended that recourse to the doctrine should not be inevitable.