I have a sneaking suspicion that the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission (RMFAC) is not decidedly intent on reallocating the controversial 76 oil wells situated in the continental shelf along the southeastern seaward boundary of the Ekang Estuary to Cross River State. It only seems to be treading on convenient ground, for some reasons.
Though the joint technical evaluation exercise with the Office of the Surveyor-General of the Federation (OSGOF) is structured as response to a petition by an aggrieved party, requesting redress of a perceived wrong, it reminds one of the popular saying that when two brothers fight, the stranger reaps the harvest. And Cross River State does not seem to mind playing the role of the other woman’, in the biblical ‘Judgment of Solomon’, story, involving a dead child.
In retrospect, if former foreign affairs minister of state, Etubom Anthony Ani, and the other political gladiators from Cross River State at the time, who used their closeness to General Sani Abacha to redraw the map of the area, had known their state would eventually be at the agonising end of the gamble, they probably would not have ventured.
Unfortunately, trying now to push the blame for the ‘hasty’ handing over of Bakassi to Cameroon, onto former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Justice Bola Ajibola, as Etubom Ani did in one of his recent write-ups, is just an escapist game. Obasanjo and Ajibola only capitalised on the foundation Ani and others laid to drive their own interests in international politics. Interestingly, all the parties in that escapade lost their respective bids; but Etubom Ani, who was also the finance minister in the Abacha era, and his co-travelers now seem like the most painful losers.
Historical context matters in unraveling what has put these two brother states on tenterhooks. It started as a game for political relevance, with politicians and technocrats flexing their muscles to demonstrate their clout in the national governance space. The two states were one, Cross River State, until 1987. There were no glaring issues regarding ownership of the settlements in the Bakassi Peninsula, particularly the Abana Ntuen and Atabong communities. These were ab-initio fishing settlements (Ine), used as stopover points by local deep-sea fishermen on the way to their final destinations.
If anything, ownership contention was between Nigeria and Cameroon. This was not limited to Abana and Atabong; it included Akpa Nkanya, Ine Ekoi, Ine Akpak, and other smaller strips on the peninsula.
During the Nigerian Civil War, General Yakubu Gowon, the Head of State, on 27 May 1967, divided Nigeria into 12 states. South Eastern State (later rechristened Cross River State) was one of them, comprising today’s Akwa Ibom and Cross River States. The original map of Eastern Nigeria placed Atabong, Abana (including James Town), and Efiat under Oron Province, now in Akwa Ibom State. Akwa Ibom was created on 23 September 1987, by the Ibrahim Babangida administration, without altering the old province boundaries.
That followed the failure of the Senator Victor Akan-led group in their bid for a Calabar State, Before then, some prominent elders, including Etubom Andem Asuquo, a member of the Obong’s Council in Calabar, from Adiabo (Mbiabo Usuk) in Cross River today, claimed ancestral heritage in Atabong, James Town and the estuaries.
There is campaign poster evidence that Etubom Asuquo contested elections to represent Mbo in the Oron State Constituency under the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) during the Second Republic. Mbo is in today’s Akwa Ibom State. So, ancestral relations existed and were well nurtured. Contention only began after the creation of Akwa Ibom State and the discovery of crude oil in commercial quantities in the Bakassi area.
As Nigeria grew more interested in the peninsula, obviously due to the massive oil discovery, Cameroon put up a challenge. While Nigeria intensified efforts to appropriate the space, political gladiators from Cross River and Akwa Ibom, anticipating derivation benefits, began a tug-of-war over ownership.
When the saga hit international limelight, it signaled a red flag, a build-up to an own goal, as Cameroon had already established significant presence in the contested area. To discerning observers, the outcome was predictable: it would be hard to claim settlements where Nigerian fishermen paid taxes to Cameroon, where Cameroon had built schools and health centres, and where Nigerian businesses operated under Cameroon-appointed warrant chiefs from districts like Kombo Abedimo and Idabato.
With the scenario growing more enticing, moves began in the direction of annexing the oil-rich section to Cross River. Prominent politicians with roots in both states leveraged their military junta connections and secured Bakassi as a distinct local government area for Cross River State in December 1996. Following the hurried packaging of Bakassi as an LGA, apparently done in spite of Akwa Ibom State, a son was crowned Paramount Ruler of the new LGA, even as his biological father was at the time a village head in neighboring Akpabuyo LGA, created earlier in 1991.
When Nigeria lost the ownership bid at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague in 2002, followed by the Green Tree Agreement of 12 June 2006, which formally ceded the peninsula to Cameroon, a new vista opened, escalating contention between the two states. Cross River, having lost its littoral status following the ICJ ruling, also forfeited rights to oil wells on the eastern seaward boundary along Nigeria’s territorial waters. Akwa Ibom became the beneficiary. In this case, 76 oil wells were affected.
Cross River challenged the loss in court. On 10 July 2012, the Supreme Court affirmed an earlier position that, as far as the ICJ ruling was concerned, Cross River lacked locus standi as a non-littoral state. Without a maritime boundary, coastline contiguous to the open sea and extending to the 200-meter isobath, Cross River had no legal grounds over offshore oil resources. That was the ruling! Notwithstanding, disputes persisted. Successive Cross River State governors tried and failed to redeem the situation.
Governor Bassey Otu now believes he might get lucky with another gambit.
He has thrown his hat in the ring, threatening Akwa Ibom’s revenue basket. Since Governor Otu’s renewed challenge, the two states have not slept easily, especially with RMFAC and OSGOF brought into the fray. Should Akwa Ibom lose sleep, with the Supreme Court judgment in its favour? Ordinarily, it shouldn’t! But staying nice amid a looming threat, especially in Nigeria’s landscape, could prove monumentally disastrous. Protecting what is in the kitty is by far better than salvaging it after losing it, even if momentarily, no matter your strength. Akwa Ibom must pull every stop to avoid a high jump.
Cross River plays on technicalities this time, that the Supreme Court was not specific about the ownership of the disputed wells.
The new lines are: the court made no direct order transferring, awarding or relocating the wells to Akwa Ibom; Cross River’s appeal at the Supreme Court was never dismissed, it was only struck out. It has remained unyielding. Having failed at the courts, the state has turned to the OSGOF and RMFAC. It claims the Supreme Court left a leeway for these agencies to assign wells to the offshore boundary where they are physically located, through technical determination.
From the look of things, it seems that the Cross River government exerted considerable pressure on these agencies to conduct a technical evaluation of the coordinates, as it insists that there has never been any coordinate-based mapping, seabed analysis or boundary overlay that has established factual entitlement on the matter. The state claims to have comprehensive geological, hydrographic, maritime and legal evidence of the disputed area covering as far as the body of water in the estuary from the west point median line to the east point at the Akwayafe Estuary opening.
The report containing the said evidence underpinned its petition to the President, prompting the Inter-Agency Committee’s scientific and geological geolocation exercise.
While Cross River insists the issue remains open to reassessment based on scientific, geological and maritime evidence, Akwa Ibom must intently scrutinise the Supreme Court ruling’s letters and purport, mindful of the issues raised in Cross River State’s technical report. The battle for the oil wells has been grueling, and Akwa Ibom State has been fierce in defence; but now it must go beyond the Supreme Court ruling and historical advantage. Nothing should be taken for granted. It is time for serious interrogation and strategic positioning. Governor Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom State and his team must leverage every advantage to retain the wells. Losing them would ruin the state’s economy and limit the people’s prosperity. The spectre of loss is nightmarish; refunding arrears of what has already been collected will be catastrophic.
James, an Abuja-based communication consultant, is a Fellow of the Nigerian Guild of Editors and member of the International Press Institute.
