Seun Bamidele Nigeria and Cameroon (Hart 2022; Nonju and Uwoh 2021). Resource endowments have long been identified as accelerators of boundary disputes in Africa, particularly in regions where natural wealth intersects with unclear or contested colonial-era borders (Egeran 2015; Otora 2022). In Bakassi’s case, the desire to control lucrative offshore oil reserves intensified nationalistic claims and shaped the post-ruling dynamics. Nigeria’s hesitancy to relinquish the territory and Cameroon’s assertiveness following the ICJ ruling reflected this deeper logic of resource-driven territoriality (Caldwell 2012; BBC 2013). However, while legal instruments such as the 2002 ICJ ruling and the 2006 Greentree Agreement have often been celebrated for averting war (ICJ 2002a; International Peace Institute 2008), they simultaneously displaced local priorities. As Bonchuk (2014) and LeFebvre (2014) observe, legal resolutions to border conflicts in Africa tend to favor elite, state-centric negotiations over participatory and inclusive justice. The Bakassi conflict illustrates how such legalism can obscure the human cost of peace: tens of thousands of people were uprooted, stripped of their legal status, or relocated to poorly resourced settlements without adequate state support (Ngalim 2019; Hussain 2023; Unah 2021). Displacement is not merely a humanitarian side-effect but a structural consequence of how postcolonial states manage territorial transitions. In Bakassi, Nigerian returnees have been relocated to temporary camps and underfunded settlements in Akwa Ibom and Cross River States, where they face limited access to housing, education, and healthcare (Cameroon Multi-Country Office 2017; Beckly 2013). Several studies document how this institutional abandonment has exacerbated psychological trauma, with elevated incidences of PTSD, distress, and anxiety among displaced populations (Madoro et al. 2020; Sheikh et al. 2016). The crisis mirrors a broader African pattern, where the collapse of protection mechanisms and prolonged state inaction transform border communities into zones of perpetual precarity (Kah 2014; Ebiede et al. 2020). These dynamics are compounded by gendered vulnerabilities. As Oke-Chinda (2021) and Oghuvbu and Okolie (2020) emphasize, women in displacement camps are disproportionately exposed to sexual violence, economic exploitation, and exclusion from decision-making processes. Despite international frameworks such as the Kampala Convention and UNSCR 1325 advocating for gender-sensitive post-conflict recovery, implementation in Bakassi has been superficial at best. Displaced women are largely absent from reintegration planning, and mechanisms for accountability and redress remain fragmented or nonexistent (Dayil 2015; Anthony 2014). Brazilian Journal of African Studies | Porto Alegre | v. 10, n. 19, Jan./Jun. 2025 | p. 144-169 149