The Akwa Ibom State government has decried the posture of some elders from the neighbouring Cross River state who have chosen to ignore the position of the supreme court on this disputed 76 oil wells and rather continue to fan the embers of disunity by making unguarded utterances.
According to the Akwa Ibom State Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Barrister Ekpenyong Ntekim, “As a Government we are alarmed and shocked by the highly temperamental pronouncements of the leadership and agents of the Cross River State government over the said judgment aimed causing a frosty relationship between the peoples of the two states and demeaning the judicial officers of the Supreme Court”, Barr. Ntekim exclaimed.
He advised peace-loving Nigerians not to be deceived by wave of propaganda and deceit against the Supreme Court ruling of July 10, 2012, as the Akwa Ibom State Government will continue to operate within the provisions of the law.
“As a responsible government, we shall continue to maintain due process in matters of both law and government and refrain from actions capable of destroying the ancient bonds or intimidating and/ or weakening the administration of justice, irrespective of the occasion or euphemism”, he added.
Barrister Ekpenyong Ntekim revealed that Cross River State was indebted to Akwa Ibom to the tune of N18.4billion , which it “surreptitiously caused the Revenue Mobilzation , Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) to arbitrarily and illegally deduct from the derivation revenues of Akwa Ibom State between January 2008 and May 2012”.
Barrister Ntekim explained that contrary to the position of Cross River State that the N18.4 billion was deducted from the ecological fund, the said amount was actually arbitrarily and illegally deducted from the statutory derivation revenue of Akwa Ibom State.
“It should be stressed that the entire sum of over N18 billion paid to Cross River State during the said period was not sourced from any Ecological funds as erroneously represented by agents of the Cross River State Government, but from the statutory derivation revenues of Akwa Ibom”, he stated.
He pointed out that the deduction was even twice the value of the derivation revenue accruable from the 76 oil wells for the period in contravention of Section 162(2) of the 1999 Constitution.
This action, he said, negated the brotherly gesture in the proposals canvassed through a letter by the Akwa Ibom State Government to its Cross River State counterpart in January 2011.
He said that the Akwa Ibom State Government even offered Cross River State a monthly grant of N250 Million in appreciation of the historical and cultural ties that bind the two sister states; a gesture that was turned down by the Cross River State Government, which opted for a continued legal tussle.
The Supreme Court sitting in Abuja in a unanimous decision had dismissed the case of Cross River State against Akwa Ibom State on the ownership of the disputed 76 oil wells describing the case as lacking in substance and merit.
In the judgment delivered by Hon. Justice Rhodes Vivour, the Court observed that Cross River State had lost its littoral status following the ruling by the International Court of Justice in 2002 which had ceded the Bakassi Peninsula to the Cameroun.
The judgment that lasted about ten minutes saw the Court held that Cross River State was not a littoral State and therefore cannot lay claim to the 76 off shore oil wells on the Atlantic coast. The Court held that the agreement entered into between Cross River and Akwa Ibom States on derivation benefit on the said oil wells could not be legally sustained because it was based on the assumption that Western Bakassi would remain in Nigeria, thereby giving Cross River State access to the sea.
In his initial reaction, the Akwa Ibom State Governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio described the judgment as ‘justice for Akwa Ibom and Cross River States, and indeed Nigeria,’ and expressed the belief that it would strengthen the bond of friendship between the two sister- states.