Date Published: 03/22/11

Rivers owes Akwa Ibom on 172 disputed oil wells says Umana Umana

Secretary to Akwa Ibom State government, Umana Okon Umana, while reacting to the judgment on the controversial oil wells, said the intervention of former President Obasanjo, ensured that: “172 oil wells earlier arbitrarily taken from Akwa Ibom State were shared on 50-50 basis between Akwa Ibom and Rivers States.”

Umana said though the so-called political solution, which imposed a 50-50 sharing of the disputed oil wells was to come into effect in 2006, Rivers State kept the 172 oil wells and collected all derivation revenues accrued from them until 2009 when the current government of Akwa Ibom State appealed to late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to correct the injustice of the so-called political solution which had no basis in law or any technical consideration.

He said if the political solution, which the Supreme Court relied on for the judgment were to subsist, Rivers would refund to Akwa Ibom arrears of all revenues accrued from 2006 to 2009 on the 50 per cent share of the oil wells, which are in excess of N75 billion.

He explained that contrary to the Supreme Court ruling that Akwa Ibom would refund to Rivers the revenue earned on the oil wells from April 2009 to February 2011, a period of 22 months, it is actually Rivers that is owing Akwa Ibom the revenue collected on the disputed 172 oil wells from November 2006 to March 2009. This, he said, was a period of 28 months and from 2004 to 2006, representing the period of the arbitrary seizure of the oil wells before the so-called political solution was signed.

According to Umana, Akwa Ibom is demanding that Rivers refund all of those revenues with interest at the going rate.

Stressing that the 172 oil wells had always been in Akwa Ibom before their arbitrary transfer to Rivers, he said that was the key fact that guided the committee of government agencies made up of the National Boundary Commission, Office of the Surveyor General of the Federation, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and the RMAFC to advise late President Yar’Adua in a 2008 technical report to return the 172 oil wells to Akwa Ibom after an exhaustive review.

Umana reiterated that Akwa Ibom had at no time ceded its oil wells to any other state on the basis of any agreement, adding that what happened was a political intervention which came out with the so-called political solution.

He challenged the Rivers government to show proof of any signed agreement between the two states on the oil wells, adding that the state government was studying the Supreme Court judgment for further necessary action.