Nigeria and Cameroon agree border security boosts

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria and Cameroon agreed on Friday to boost security around the Bakassi Peninsula to prevent a recurrence of violence along the long-disputed maritime border.

Suspected Nigerian pirates on June 9 kidnapped six people in the peninsula, igniting fears among local Nigerians of possible reprisals by Cameroonians.

The Nigerian government agreed to hand back the peninsula to Cameroon two years ago after a decades-long dispute.

"Nigeria has two options -- either agree with the judgment and implement it or disagree with it and get ready for war," Nigerian delegation head Prince Bola Ajibola told reporters at the end of a two-day U.N. special commission meeting.

The commission's chairman Said Djinnit said the recent violence was "rather unfortunate" and more needed to be done by the two countries to prevent future incidents.

Nigerian officials said a five-year handover plan for the Bakassi peninsula, which involves the voluntary resettlement of Nigerian communities, was still on track.

Around 90 percent of the population in the area are Nigerian fishermen and their families.

The waters off Bakassi are known to contain oil deposits. The peninsula lies just east of Nigeria's oil rich Niger Delta.

Last November Cameroon said it believed Nigerian rebels were behind a speedboat attack on an army post that left 20 Cameroonian soldiers and 10 assailants dead.