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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The Anglophone Cameroon-Nigeria Boundary: Opportunities and Conflicts |
Author: | Konings, Piet |
Year: | 2005 |
Periodical: | African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society |
Volume: | 104 |
Issue: | 415 |
Period: | April |
Pages: | 275-301 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Nigeria Cameroon |
Subjects: | conflict boundaries colonialism History and Exploration Inter-African Relations Politics and Government Urbanization and Migration Economics and Trade |
External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/3518445 |
Abstract: | Recent studies of African boundaries have tended to focus either on the growing number of border disputes between States or on frontier regions that are said to offer local inhabitants a wide range of economic opportunities. This article combines both approaches and demonstrates the ambiguous nature of the Anglophone Cameroon-Nigeria border. On the one hand, the border has been subject to regular skirmishes between Cameroon and Nigeria, culminating in a protracted war over the sovereignty of the Bakassi peninsula - an area rich in oil reserves. On the other hand, it has for historical and economic reasons never constituted a real barrier to cross-border movements of labour and goods. The large Nigerian migrant community in Anglophone Cameroon, in particular, has been able to benefit from formal and informal cross-border trade for a long time. Unsurprisingly, its dominant position in the host community's commercial sector has been a continuous source of conflict. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract] |