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After years of waiting, President Buhari signed the PIB bill into law
By Akpan David, Calabar
The Petroleum Industry Bill recently passed into law has pitched the Akwa Ibom State government against, at least, 17 communitiies in
Eastern Obolo local government area of the state.
The communities have vowed that they will resist the state government over their 56 oil wells which have purportedly been ceded to nearby local government areas.
This follows alleged redesigning of the state map which completely denies them the host status of the said oil wells which situated in their lands and waters.
They poured their displeasure at a press conference held yesterday by the apex socio-cultural and political organization of the Eastern Obolo people, called Ilima Obolo, where they called on the state governor never to assent to the resolution of the state House of Assembly.
President and general secretary Uye-awaji Zephenaih and Dr Amah Williams respectively said the purported alteration and adjustment of the original Akwa Ibom State map is a vain imagination of by the state legislature.
Such, they maintained will never be allowed to come to be.
They alleged that the state governor, Mr Udom Emmanuel who hails from Onna LGA of the state may be behind the Assembly’s swift move to redraw the map in order to also make Mkpat Enin, Ikot Abasi as well as his own
Onna, littoral LGAs with access to the Atlantic Ocean where these wells situate.
The PIB, now a law, allows oil bearing communities in Nigeria to benefit from 3% oil derivations.
It would be recalled that on 16 September 2021, a law maker, David Lawrence who represents Eket state constituency in the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, sponsored a motion, which made the assembly to direct the state surveyor general to urgently redraw a ‘generally accepted’ map of the state.
The assembly also ordered that all other enactments concerning the original maps should be jettisoned and abrogated.
They urged the state governor to cause the new map so drawn by the state surveyor general to gazette it immediately as an official map of the state.
Arising from that resolution by the assembly, Williams who addressed the press on behalf of the group, said “The purported readjustment of the boundaries of Eastern Obolo and Ibeno LGAs which hitherto were the only two that had access to the Atlantic Ocean is a pointer and a further confirmation of the grand plot towards the extinction of their minority people in the state.”
He denied that they were never consulted by the state government on the matter for their own inputs.
“The sinister move by the state is to enable Onna, Mkpat Enin and Ikot Abasi have littoral status with access to oil wells located offshores of Eastern Obolo so as to also draw from the 3% allocated to oil bearing communitiies under PIB and nothing more pretentious.
“The purported re-mapping is illegal and unconstitutional as well as a calculated land grabbing strategy.
“It is a flagrant contravention of section 8 sub-section 4 of the 1999 constitution (as amended)”
Williams said such attempt to deny them ownership of the oil wells is null, void and of no effect because they are ready to resist it using all legal means.
They called on the state governor to disregard what they described as unpopular and anti-people resolution of the state assembly and that he should stop further tampering with the state map for selfish reasons.
They cautiones the state government against further marginising and oppressing them, warning that if the government went ahead with the doctored map, they “shall take necessary actions within the ambit of the law to preserve our territorial boundaries from balkanization.
