Peninsula to change their nationality.219 The territory was formally handed over to Cameroon on 14 August 2008, though a Nigerian presence remained during a five-year transitional period. The understanding was that at the end of the transitional period, Bakassi residents could become Cameroonian with the right to Cameroonian identity documents; but could also remain Nigerian with resident alien status in Cameroon; or leave Bakassi and resettle in Nigeria.220 The legal authority to enable these outcomes on either side of the border needs clarification. Cameroon would have to adopt specific legislation to grant nationality as a group to the Bakassi residents affected by the transfer of territory; however, it has promised not to force them to change their nationality, so the law would need to provide for an option rather than automatic attribution, and to make that option easily accessible, as well as specifying the right of the Bakassi residents to keep Nigerian nationality and the terms on which they could obtain resident alien status. Naturalisation as a Cameroonian is theoretically available after five years’ legal residence (presumably completed at the end of the transitional period), but is highly discretionary and hard to obtain in practice. In Nigeria, the nationality status of Bakassi residents is complicated by the fact that the border between Nigeria and Cameroon at the Bakassi zone was formerly the border between the British Protectorate of Southern Nigeria and the former German territory that was mandated to Britain by the League of Nations and administered from Nigeria as the Southern Cameroons; the legal situation of Bakassi residents moving to Nigeria is not entirely clear.221 Today, there are reportedly problems in establishing nationality both for those Bakassi residents who remained in their homes, in what is now Cameroon, and for those who have relocated to the Nigerian side of the border in Cross Rivers State. Within Cameroon, at the end of the transitional period on 14 August 2013, former Nigerians wishing to regularise their status theoretically had to apply either for a residence permit or for Cameroonian citizenship.222 A registration drive was promised but had not yet taken place by the end of the year.223 Without special dispensation, Bakassi residents would first require a Nigerian passport to acquire residence permits as aliens. In addition, under the Cameroonian 219 Article 3(2) states that “Cameroon shall : a) Not force Nigerian nationals living in the Bakassi Peninsula to leave the zone or to change their nationality …”. See also, Alain-Didier Olinga, L'Accord de Greentree du 12 juin 2006 relatif à la presqu'île de Bakassi, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2009. There was no similar agreement in relation to the populations living in the disputed border area towards Lake Chad whose territory was allocated to Cameroon; similar problems may exist in relation to the recognition of the nationality of those living there, but there has been much less attention drawn to them (even before the current insecurity in the region). 220 “CAMEROON-NIGERIA: Bakassi - more than one place, more than one problem”, IRIN, 13 November 2007; Le temps des realisations: Bulletin mensuel bilingue d’informations N° 14, Special Edition on Bakassi, Government of Cameroon, August/September 2013. 221 In 1961, the Southern Cameroons voted in a referendum to join (the formerly French mandate) newly independent Cameroon; while the Northern Cameroons voted to join independent Nigeria. Special provisions on the nationality of the residents of the Northern Cameroons were introduced into the Federal Constitution of 1960 by the Nigeria Constitution First Amendment Act of 1961. Since Bakassi has been determined to be part of the Southern Cameroons by the ICJ judgment, there may be the need for an explicit constitutional amendment to provide for the right to Nigerian nationality of Bakassi residents who have moved to Nigeria. See, “Annotated Text of the Citizenship Legislation”, in Arthur V.J. Nylander The Nationality and Citizenship Laws of Nigeria, Lagos: University of Lagos, 1973. 222 “Le Cameroun retrouve la plénitude de sa souveraineté sur la presqu’île de Bakassi », Présidence de la République du Cameroun, 14 August 2013 ; « Bakassi residents to pay tax under Cameroon sovereignty », BBC News, 15 August 2013 ; « Press Statement on Bakassi Peninsula Developments », SC/11094 AFR/2680, UN Security Council, 15 August 2013. 223 Email communication from Leanne Johansson, doctoral candidate, University of Oxford, 19 February 2014. 68