Vision and Vexation: A Cautionary Restatement on the Exhumed 76 Oil Wells Dispute

Vision and Vexation: A Cautionary Restatement on the Exhumed 76 Oil Wells Dispute

By Celestine Mel

In a federation already fractured by ethno-political tensions and an ever-eroding trust in national institutions, there can be no greater folly than the exhumation of matters already resolved by geography, law, and the scars of history. The dispute over the 76 offshore oil wells between Akwa Ibom and Cross River States is one such issue that was settled in fact, affirmed in law, and should have been best left undisturbed in the jurisprudential graveyard of history. Yet, here we are again, summoned to the theatre of provocation by the ghost of a dead horse being flogged with renewed vigour.

Let me begin by admitting that this is one of the most painful interventions I have ever made in public discourse. My emotional tether to Cross River runs deep. I spent my formative years in Calabar, the elegant paradise city once heralded as the cleanest in West Africa. I started and completed my graduate education in the famous ‘Malabor Republik.’ My professional journey began there too, as a contract staff of the Cross River State Water Board, which was a paragon of public utility management in its heyday, supplying potable water with an efficiency that rivalled Europe’s best across Calabar, Akamkpa, Ugep, Ikom, Usumutong, Ediba, Ekori, Mkpani, and beyond. That state was once a beacon and a tantalising glimpse into what a sub-national entity could become when vision met competence.

One of the darkest chapters in my sojourn in Calabar was the symbolic lowering of the Nigerian flag at the Marina Area and hoisting of the Camerounian flag during the final handover of the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon in 2008, following the ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2002, which ceded the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon. I watched, disillusioned, as dignitaries smiled, shook hands, and posed for cameras. Some of us from Akwa Ibom stood back in a corner of the town, fighting back tears. It felt like a betrayal; like a quiet, calculated surrender of our ancestral soil without a shot to a weaker pilferer, without a dissenting voice. I wrote a fiery piece then, condemning both the Obasanjo administration for signing the Greentree Agreement and the docile elite of Cross River who supervised the ceremonial interment of part of our collective patrimony. I recall the elites were too despoiled by the ‘Bakassi Resettlement bazaar’ unleashed by President Obasanjo. to bother about the generational consequences of their capitulation and acquiescence. My reaction to this was documented in 2012 here 👉 https://www.facebook.com/owydoho.Idio/posts/pfbid02nsR26rphLGELPaGtyEZMBcVeJce5P4f2QTMRpbfu4LYqzzrxD1Hbs5affGTnFN9cl

But the Bakassi story is older than Obasanjo. My late father often spoke of it with clarity and emotion. The land, he said, was always administered by Nigeria through Oron in Akwa Ibom, and the cultural overlap between the Oron and Bakassi communities was unmistakable. During the dark days of the Abacha era, Cross River wielded and exploited proximity to the centre like a dagger, to satiate its ambitions. In a political sleight of hand, Bakassi Local Government Area was carved from Akwa Ibom and bestowed upon Cross River—in 1996. It was a strategic manoeuvre that deprived Akwa Ibom of what was historically hers. It left the state decapitated, impotent, and powerless.

Perhaps this distortion of geography and law, eventually cost Nigeria the case at the ICJ. Cross River, which was not the original owner of the land, lacked the historical and legal ammunition to help Nigeria mount a credible defence. Like the woman in Solomon’s court who agreed to divide her child, Cross River stood by as Bakassi was ceded. Their best brains and great leaders attended the handover in fanfare, not in grief. And then came the judicial reckoning.

As the peninsula evaporated into Cameroon, reality hit home. Seventy-six offshore oil wells, which were always located within the Akwa Ibom continental shelf but were underhandedly annexed to Cross River State resulting from the Bakassi heist, became the next subject of dispute for our neighbours. They went to court.

Twice, the Supreme Court of Nigeria affirmed that with the loss of Bakassi, Cross River ceased to be a littoral state and, by extension, lost any legitimate claim to offshore oil resources. The 2005 ruling in _AG Cross River v. AG Federation & Anor_ dismissed the state’s claim over the southern estuarine boundary, declaring unequivocally that “Cross River no longer has a seaward boundary.”

Again, in 2012, the apex court shut the door firmly in SC. 27/2010, asserting that *a non-littoral state could not lay claim to maritime oil wells.* In that judgement, the Supreme Court rebuked former President Obasanjo and all others who were touting the idea of a “political solution,” by affirming that no other institution or arm of government has power to review, amend, or tamper with the judgement of the Supreme Court of the land. Justice Olufunmilayo Adekeye, in her lead judgment, stated categorically that the plaintiff’s claims lacked merit. Justice Bode Rhodes-Vivour went even further, describing Cross River’s arguments as “strange and unfortunate.”

Let us not be confused: this matter is not pending; it is closed—judicially, morally, and constitutionally. Attempts to resurrect it under the guise of political settlement, revisionist lobbying, or sentimental activism are not only dishonest but dangerous. They represent an assault on the finality of judicial pronouncements and the collective memory of a people who have suffered legal, financial, and emotional theft.

A little more background.

When Bakassi was ceded to Cameroon, over 80% of the inhabitants of the peninsula were indigenes of Oron in Akwa Ibom. They vowed to resist Cameroonian authority over their ancestral land. Predictably, they could not hold the line against a Nigerian Federal Government on retreat, and a Cameroonian regime that took no prisoners.

I still recall that villages such as Abana Ntuen Ibok, Ine, and Idua have mirror settlements in Oron to this day. But because General Abacha had more Cross Riverians than Akwa Ibomites in his inner circle, he conveniently carved out and transferred Bakassi to Cross River State, despite the fact that successive military governments in Akwa Ibom had invested heavily in the peninsula: constructing schools, hospitals, and roads. Cross River, which reaped this political windfall, had neither stake nor sweat in the matter. It lacked the history, and frankly, the moral authority to defend the peninsula from Cameroonian evidences in the ICJ. The rest, as they say, is history. A history increasingly lost on our Gen Zs and TikTok diplomats.

Now, let’s return to the oil wells.

In an extraordinary demonstration of brotherhood and magnanimity toward a neighbour, wounded more by self-sabotage than injustice, the Akwa Ibom State Government, in the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling, approved a ₦250 million monthly ex gratia payment to Cross River State. It was indefinite. It was generous. It was a rare gesture from a state that had just emerged vindicated. In 2006. The Cross River, in a fit of pride draped as principle, rejected the offer. Formally. In writing. Thanks, but no thanks. That, we believe, was the final nail in the coffin.

Yet here we are, nineteen years later, and once again, a few elite voices from Cross River, are flapping about, peddling new claims and reviving old wounds. At first, I thought it was a joke. Until I read a recent press release by the Akwa Ibom State Government, alerting the public to renewed efforts by Cross River to reopen the case. And I asked myself: How do you breathe life into a corpse that’s long been buried under law, logic, and geography?

This dispute is beginning to resemble Wole Soyinka’s _Abiku_, the spirit-child, who dies and returns again and again, dragging grief into fresh cycles. It is the haunting of a matter already resolved, a ghost that refuses to stay dead. Who is calling it back? And more importantly, why?

Let no one be deceived by media theatrics and political pyrotechnics. The facts are immutable and must again be restated for the record:

1. Cross River State approached the Supreme Court twice regarding the 76 oil wells. It lost both times.

2. It only succeeded in one segment of the case, where the court ruled that certain disputed villages in Itu were, in fact, part of Odukpani in Cross River. Those villages remain in Cross River’s territory to this day.

3. The Nigerian Supreme Court further declared that Cross River is no longer a littoral state and, therefore, has no legal claim to offshore mineral resources.

4. Akwa Ibom, in good faith, offered ex gratia compensation, which was rejected.

5. In a separate ruling, the same Supreme Court awarded 84 oil wells, originally attributed to Akwa Ibom, to Rivers State. Those have since been subtracted from Akwa Ibom’s revenue calculations and transferred to Rivers.

6. Political dialogue cannot overturn a final judgment of the highest court in the land.

7. Cross River cannot pick and choose which court orders to respect and which to flout. That path leads to anarchy.

I am told that His Excellency, Vice President Kashim Shettima, convened a political meeting to discuss this issue. It was agreed that both states would pursue further dialogue on the issues. But instead of exploring that dignified route, some Cross River elites appear to be orchestrating a media siege, seeking sympathy through spin. They are once again trying to extract water from the rocks of finality, hoping that the President might engineer a reversal of fate. But, as we say in street parlance, na lie. E no go happen!!

It was precisely to neutralize such partisan ploys that His Excellency, Pastor Umo Eno, made the strategic decision to align Akwa Ibom with the centre by joining the APC. Perhaps he recalled the wisdom of our elders who said that “the antelope that once escapes the hunter’s snare should treat every crooked stick with suspicion.” Governor Eno, having absorbed the brutal lessons of the Abacha pinfall that robbed us of Bakassi, saw through Cross River’s plan to revive the old trick, leveraging political access to the Villa to shortchange Akwa Ibom again. This time, the snare snapped on empty ground. The governor has entered the APC’s inner room ahead of the ambush. He has read the script between the lines, and repositioned Akwa Ibom for the new dance. He knows too well that history punishes the unprepared. Now, we’re not just alert, we are in the room, bumper-to-bumper.

And I add. If dialogue must proceed, let it begin with restitution. Cross River must refund every kobo of illegally collected revenue on the 76 oil wells before the Supreme Court judgment halted the sleaze. It must also include terminating the ghostly existence of Bakassi as a revenue-earning Local Government in Cross River, despite the land being fully ceded to Cameroon since 2008. That Bakassi LGA remains listed among Nigeria’s 774 LGAs in Part I of the First Schedule to the 1999 Constitution (as amended) is a constitutional absurdity. In reality, Cross River comprises seventeen, not eighteen LGAs. That aberration must be expunged.

Also, any future political engagement must revisit the Oku/Itu/Ayadehe land disputes, where the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Cross River. Since that judgment, hundreds of displaced indigenes have been slaughtered in communal violence ignited by the dislocation. Justice must extend to those whose lives were upended by the court’s cold impartiality.

Yes, Cross River once dared to dream. Tinapa was an audacious vision. I remember when it rose from the Calabar rainforest like a sci-fi hallucination. But today, it lies abandoned, not because of Akwa Ibom, but due to a string of leaders who traded vision for vanity. The same fate befell the Obudu Cattle Ranch and its world-class cable car. So many buried potentials, so much unfulfilled promise and broken dreams…….

The collapse of Cross River’s economy is not grounds for covetousness, it’s a call to return to its first principles; its a biggle to play to their strengths to conquer like they used to: in tourism, in agriculture, and more importantly, in the intellect of its people.

Let me conclude with these parting shots:
To Cross River: Akwa Ibom is not your enemy. Rediscover your purpose. Reclaim your future.
To Abuja: Do not violate the sanctity of the Supreme Court. Nigeria’s institutional soul will outlive this generation.
To Pastor Umo Eno: Thank you for moving with wisdom and precision. History will remember you kindly.
To the People of Akwa Ibom: Remain firm, but measured. Respond to propaganda with the stubborn truth. Love your neighbour, but never drop your guard. As Thomas Jefferson warned, “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” And the Good Book says, “blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”

Let no one deceive themselves: a future dialogue cannot and will not include any reallocation of Akwa Ibom’s oil wells. That bridge has been crossed by law, by geography, and by divine justice.
As brothers, we shall not be drawn into re-litigating victories already secured. We will not bear another man’s bitterness as our burden. Let the dead rest. Let the oil wells lie where God, geography, and the gavel of justice placed them.

Celestine Mel_ write from the FCT. Abuja.

(First published July 2012. Worth resharing again)