148 Borders without belonging: statelessness, displacement, and human insecurity in post-han- deprives individuals of civil, political, and social rights, including access to education, healthcare, and legal protection. Cameroon’s restrictive nationality laws further complicate the path to legal recognition for Nigerian-origin residents (Nguindip 2017), while attempts to obtain legal identification have remained inconsistent and exclusionary (Macdonald 2024). The crisis has also generated localized resistance in the form of secessionist agitation and community-led self-determination movements. The Bakassi Movement for Self-Determination (BAMOSD), for instance, emerged in response to the perceived abandonment of Bakassians by both Nigeria and Cameroon (Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada 2010; Nwoko 2015). Scholars like Akhere (2023) and Beckly (2013) document the identity crisis experienced by Bakassi residents, whose ethnic and cultural affiliation with Nigeria contrasts sharply with their new legal and political reality under Cameroonian governance. This disjuncture has deepened grievances and reinforced perceptions of marginalization, akin to other borderland tensions in Africa (Fobella 2007; Ngalim 2016). Furthermore, the role of international law in adjudicating boundary disputes has come under critical scrutiny. While legal instruments such as the ICJ ruling and the Greentree Agreement aimed to provide clarity and stability (International Peace Institute 2008), they often do so at the expense of border communities. Ebolo (2022) and LeFebvre (2014) critique the top-down nature of such legal solutions, arguing that they reinforce state-centric sovereignty while silencing subaltern voices. This exclusion has implications for both legitimacy and long-term peace, especially when the socio-political agency of displaced or stateless groups is ignored. The Bakassi case thus represents a broader pattern in postcolonial African politics, where international legal mechanisms and regional diplomacy fail to adequately resolve the internal complexities of citizenship, belonging, and territorial identity. Without meaningful inclusion of local stakeholders and the institutionalization of rights-based frameworks for affected populations, legal peace becomes fragile and temporary. Territorial Displacement, Resource Politics, and the Limits of Legal Resolution The Bakassi Peninsula crisis exemplifies the complex entanglement of territorial sovereignty, resource competition, and displacement in postcolonial Africa. Located within an oil-rich maritime zone, Bakassi’s geopolitical and economic value elevated the stakes of the territorial dispute between Brazilian Journal of African Studies | Porto Alegre | v. 10, n. 19, Jan./Jun. 2025 | p. 144-169