We expect President Tinubu to end delineation injustice against Cross River State — Ex-lawmaker, Obun

2026-03-14 - 07:07

•Says Nigeria losing money from oil wells found in ungoverned places •Laments Bakassi people still homeless 17 years after ICJ judgment By Johnbosco Agbakwuru Honourable Cletus Obun is a former member of the Cross River State House of Assembly and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress. He is a political activist and former lecturer. He was the state Chairman of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). In this interview, he laments the plight of the Bakassi people after the ceding of the area to Cameroon by the International Court of Justice, the abandonment of the people, the injustice done to the state as a result of the loss of 76 oil wells, and the agitation by the people. Excerpts: This issue of ceding 76 oil wells from Cross River State to Akwa Ibom as a result of the International Court of Justice judgment some years ago is still rearing its head. And there is agitation from the Cross River State government that there was a misplacement of justice. What do you have to say about that? Well, that matter has become some kind of albatross on the neck of Cross River State. Very unfortunately so, because after losing territory without consent, without following due process, internationally and nationally, Nigeria virtually surrendered a territory of its own and its own people, including their ancestral homes, without compunction and without any regard to their history, to their dignity, and indeed to their rights enshrined in all international treaties to which Nigeria is a signatory. One of them should have been a referendum on where those people living there—yes, you’re interested in territory and interested in oil and the minerals thereof, and the territorial seas and the maritime boundaries, which will extend and bring resources. But you were not thinking about the humans in the place. This is precisely the predicament of the people of Bakassi. And to prove that this is correct, you will find that even the Green Tree Agreement has not been implemented more than 20 years after that; that is to say that even after Nigeria forced its own citizens to become refugees in their own country (because they didn’t want to be Cameroonians), they left their ancestral lands in Atabong town, in Abana, and those little parts of the island that were ceded. Those who have left to come to the Nigerian side, because they are Efiks and they are Nigerians and wanted to stay here, so they are in Day Spring now, the other part. Not the entire Bakassi Peninsula was ceded; it was just a part of it. Nigeria proceeded as if the entire people were surrendered and given out as a bounty to the people of Cameroon on the international court. At no point did the International Court of Justice put the boundary and declare that Cross River State was not a littoral state. It took the Nigerian state with its own courts to so say. And as we speak now, Nigeria has ungoverned maritime spaces that are becoming home to pirates and oil bunkering and oil theft, and soon it will become a danger to Nigeria within the maritime boundaries that it holds. So it has become very important that Nigeria now looks at that issue in a manner that will not jeopardise its own security within its own territorial waters. Only recently, we had to take a media tour to the area in which we showed that, contrary to the claims by Akwa Ibom, which is celebrating the fact that Nigeria has made Cross River not a littoral state—by its very name, Cross River—how will you suggest that the Calabar estuary has been wished away by just a mere declaration on paper? What have been the effects of this judgment on Cross River since it was delivered? One is that Cross River State has lost everything that it ought to get in terms of resources accruing from those areas. Two is that the sense of nationhood that Cross Riverians ought to feel has been surrendered, completely downplayed, and indeed, the people of Bakassi have remained homeless till today. Even the promises made under the Green Tree Agreement have never been fulfilled, and (former President Olusegun) Obasanjo is still alive and is never talking about it, but talks about other things political, but never talks about the fundamental rights of the people that he surrendered, and not urging the government of the day to at all times give reference and effect to the terms and conditions of the Green Tree Agreement. Nigeria therefore owes Cross River State on two fronts. This is the second time in our political history in existence as a state. When the Nigerian civil war was called in Gakim and started in Gakim, no monument and nothing has been done to compensate those people in Gakem in Ogoja Province, as it then was, and present Cross River. Today, again, Cross River State, to bring international peace to Nigeria, has had to surrender its territory and has been again left in the lurch by the same Nigerian state. So it is important, and it doesn’t also speak well of brotherhood, in which the people of Akwa Ibom keep insisting that Cross River was not a littoral state in spite of having over 2000 oil wells accruing enough revenue for it; it is still struggling for a meagre 76 oil wells and the newly discovered 119—that is what Akwa Ibom is struggling for with 2000 oil wells already waiting, one of the highest in Nigeria oil-producing areas of the Niger Delta. Yet it goes to struggle and ensure that Cross River must suffer the battering and the effect of keeping Nigerian peace within its territorial waters, within the Bight of Biafra in the Gulf of Guinea. What does the state want from the federal government? Under the present circumstances in which the Naval Authorities, the Boundary Commission, and indeed the Surveyor General of the Federation and of the two states of Akwa Ibom and Cross River have gone to take the coordinates that have found that Cross River is indeed a littoral state, and that by the International Law of the Sea Cross River State has lost nothing; instead, it has gained more territory, and even for Nigeria, not just for itself, but for Nigeria. Before you get to Rio del Rey, before you get into Tom Shot Island, which shoots between Cross River and Akwa Ibom, for Cross River State’s estuary to enter the sea, it gives you the seaward boundary up to Lagos and giving Nigeria more territorial waters than it ever bargained for. Why is Cross River to pay the price for all the sacrifice to keep Nigeria, giving its own boundaries and keeping its territorial integrity intact within the Gulf of Guinea? Why should Cross River be made to pay the price? So, we are expecting that the President should act judiciously, quickly, and in the interest of humanity. We are not asking to be pitied; we are asking that justice should be done to this matter of ceding Bakassi and giving us the double jeopardy of taking us out of our littoral status, and therefore depriving us of the economic benefit that should have come to us from oil production. I know that Akwa Ibom is afraid that they will be asked to make refunds on what happened that can be negotiated as brothers. So, we are not begging; we are not on the begging end. If Nigeria does not want us, we can under Article 22 of the International Treaty on the Rights of Indigenous People—with 22 articles—we were never contacted, we were never consulted, and there was never a plebiscite or a referendum to show whether Cross Riverians wanted to leave that place or not. In spite of all these levels of injustices at the international level, at the national level, now at the regional level, that is the provincial level of even state to state—even when Akwa Ibom was created. Don’t forget that Delta State was created from then Bendel State, the present-day Edo State. Do you know that territorially, there was no way Edo State would have been enjoying any oil revenue, but it was the gravitas and the brotherhood that is in our own anthem: in brotherhood we stand. Where is the brotherhood between Cross River and Akwa Ibom? 70% of investments in Cross River State are Akwa Ibom people. Why are they not thinking about that? Akwa Ibom should know that the nose and the eyes have a relationship in which what affects one affects all. If Cross River is not comfortable, there’s no way Akwa Ibom will be comfortable, and if Akwa Ibom is not comfortable, there’s no way Cross River will be comfortable. When the Supreme Court gave judgment between Akwa Ibom and Rivers State, definitive statements were made about the particular rivers, the particular estuaries, the particular towns, and oil wells that were affected. In the case of Cross River, we are asked to go and do demarcation; that was never done for more than 17 years. Is crime having a deadline now because it is Cross River? Does crime have a deadline? Crime has no expiry date. At any time you are found culpable, the hands of the law will catch up with you, and you will pay the price. What has Cross River lost as a result the judgement, can you quantify it monetarily? When you reduce it to financial benefits, you will be reducing the gravity of what Cross River is suffering. It is unquantifiable. For instance, it’s running into trillions for 17 years, 13% derivation—even if you are getting 1 billion a month times 17 years, twelve times 17 times 1 billion is how much? You are talking about trillions. And you know that oil money coming on the 13% derivation is not 1 billion a month; it’s more than that. So multiply that by 12 months times 17 years, and you now know what we are talking about. That is what we have lost in monetary terms. But in terms of human dignity, in terms of territorial water, in terms of security, it is unquantifiable, both to Nigeria and to Cross River and even Akwa Ibom people. Like I told you, there are ungoverned maritime spaces in that area before you enter the sea from the Calabar estuary. What will Cross River be gaining, what will Nigeria be gaining, and what will Akwa Ibom gain if that place is infiltrated by Chinese and other such international bodies and key oil thieves that are occupying the place today? Is that what they want—that oil should rather go to thieves and illegal bunkering should go on there, rather than go to the states and the sub-nationals and go to the federal purse to give us a deficit in infrastructure that we are lacking? I do think that Akwa Ibom has to think twice. On their own, they should voluntarily say, we have this: Cross River, take what you have there. The 238 have been discovered, plus the 76; take it. We have 2000 already. We are comfortable. Vanguard News