Soku Oil Wells And Bayelsa Claims

Renewed media campaigns by the Bayelsa
State Government over the ownership of
Soku oil wells has tended to expose a grand plan to forcefully annex some Rivers communities to Bayelsa State in spite of legal declarations on the matter.
Coming after the visit of the Bayelsa State Governor, Hon Seriake Dickson, to the Amayanabo of Abonnema, HRM Disrael Gbobo, and the delibrate misrepresentation of the Kalabari Monarch by the Bayelsa State media machine, the matter calls for utmost caution before things get out of hand.
The dispute which got to the Supreme Court of Nigeria was supposed to have been resolved by the correction of an error in the delineation of the inter-state boundary in the 11th edition of the administrative map of Nigeria prepared by the National Boundaries Commission and the office of the Surveyor-General of the Federation in 1999.
Rather than maintain Santa Barbara River as the boundary between the Kalabari and Nembe communities as all previous delineations and all historical records, the last administrative map had shifted the boundary west of this rivers to San Bartholomeo River.
Going by the contentious map, it would mean that some ancient Kalabari communities and settlements along with about 41 oil wells located within the Soku oil field in Rivers State had suddenly become part of the Nembe clan in Bayelsa State.
The Rivers State Government promptly challenged the document by petitioning the relevant authorities which duly acknowledged the error and promised to effect the correction in the 12th edition of the map. The state also went further to insist that no accruals from the wells should be paid to Bayelsa State.
The Supreme Court before which the case went had also ordered that all monies accruing from the disputed oil wells be lodged in an escrow account by the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMFAC).
That was, indeed, the position of things until the Rivers State Governor, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi, recently alerted the State and the nation about the secret disbursement of N17 billion from the escrow account to Bayelsa State.
Even as they initially denied receiving such money, the Bayelsa State Government has continued to lay claim to the disputed oil wells, insisting that they fall within its Oluasiri oil field in Nembe. In fact, their on-going current media campaign tends to expose a rather jittery and desperate people trying so hard to rewrite history.
In fact, Governor Dickson had in a press statement, accused his Rivers State counterpart of “blackmailing President Goodluck Jonathan; and of using Soku to incite the Kalabaris in Rivers State against their Nembe kinsmen in Bayelsa”.
With the ongoing media circus on the matter, two things stand out clearly: while tempers are rising, especially on the Kalabari side, direct allegations of bias against President Jonathan on the matter can no longer be ignored.
Indeed, the failure to provide answers to the delay in the production of the 12th edition of the National Administrative Map and the silence over who authorized the disbursement of fund from the escrow account only calls for chaos in the area.
Similarly, the silence over allegations that some oil wells in Etche (Rivers State) were also ceded to Abia State equally constitutes a deliberate insult on the sensibilities of the government and good people of Rivers State.
What some people believed to be one of the political cards of Governor Amaechi had now become a real challenge for Rivers State and the Kalabari Kingdom in particular. This apparently explains why such elder statesmen as Professor Tam David West are leading other prominent chiefs and Governor Amaechi especially on the Soku issue.
We think it has become rather mandatory that the Presidency clears the air on the matter and allow peace to reign. This has become imperative because it will not be in the interest of Nigeria or the affected states if the Niger Delta boils again.