Supreme Court Judgement Didn’t Erase Cross River Coastline, Group Tells Akpabio

The Cross River State Businessmen’s Forum has told the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, that the 2012 Supreme Court judgement which ceded 76 oil wells to Akwa Ibom State did not erase the coastline of Cross River State.

President of the forum, Chief Henry Onwe made the remarks while reacting to Akpabio’s recent claim at an event marking the 39th Anniversary of Akwa Ibom State where he described Cross River as a non-littoral and landlocked state.

Onwe stated that the claim by some certain individuals in some quarters that Cross River has lost its littoral status no longer holds water.

The forum in statement signed by its President, Chief Henry Onwe, and issued in Calabar, yesterday, described Akpabio’s assertion as “geographically inaccurate” and misleading.

“As leaders of the organised private sector, we refuse to accept such claims from the nation’s Senate President who ought to speak based on facts and neutrality,” Onwe said.

Onwe argued that the 2012 Supreme Court judgement only settled the administrative allocation of oil wells following the ceding of Bakassi to Cameroon and did not redefine Nigeria’s physical geography.

To prove that Cross River remains a littoral state, the group listed four verifiable facts including the permanent siting of the Eastern Naval Command in Calabar, which it said cannot be based in a landlocked territory.

Other reason include the re-accreditation of the state as littoral by relevant federal agencies and the existence of the Cross River Estuary which discharges directly into the Bight of Bonny in the Atlantic Ocean.

It added that ongoing scientific work by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) involving GPS mapping, as well as surveys for the Bakassi Deep Seaport project, have identified oil wellheads within the state’s coastal boundaries.

The Forum said it stands firmly behind Governor Bassey Otu in the effort to reclaim the state’s rightful littoral status and derivation benefits, and called on all stakeholders, including the media, to maintain neutrality and rely on “physical geography as well as certified federal data.”