Former Nigerian Ambassador to Russia and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Assam Assam, has said the long-running dispute between Akwa Ibom and Cross River states over offshore oil wells is not caused by unclear boundaries but by disagreements arising from revenue mobilisation efforts tied to newly identified oil wells.
Assam made the clarification in an interview on ARISE News on Thursday, as the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) attempts to broker a resolution to the dispute.
According to him, the conflict dates back more than two decades and was reignited by the discovery and allocation of new oil wells, not the original 76 wells frequently referenced in public discussions.
“What we fail to appreciate is that this problem arose as a consequence of the revenue mobilisation exercise in determining the location of new oil wells. We are not talking about 76 oil wells. We are talking about 218 new oil wells,” Assam said.
He traced the origins of the dispute to June 1999, when Cross River State approached the Supreme Court seeking a declaration that 76 oil wells located in the estuary of the Cross River fell within its maritime territory.
“What brought us to this point is what brought us to the Supreme Court in 1999, when Cross River State took out an action asking the court to declare 76 oil wells in the estuary of the Cross River as being within its maritime territory,” he said.
Assam explained that the matter lingered until 2005, but was significantly affected by the 2002 judgment of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the international boundary between Nigeria and Cameroon.
“The unintended consequence of that ICJ decision was that it redrew Nigeria’s internal maps. According to the 1913 Anglo-German Treaty, the boundary stretched along the thalweg — the deepest point — of the Akwaiafe River, three nautical miles into the estuary,” he said.
He noted that the Akwaiafe River, a tributary of the Cross River, runs into the estuary that separates Akwa Ibom and Cross River states, making the ICJ ruling consequential for internal maritime boundaries.
Rejecting claims that boundary delineation remains unresolved, Assam said the matter was conclusively addressed years ago.
“That is not correct. The lines are clearly delineated as we speak today,” he said.
He disclosed that in 2008, an inter-agency committee meeting in Kano resolved the boundary issues and produced definitive maps through the National Boundary Commission (NBC).
“The maps were properly drawn and presented by the National Boundary Commission. I have a letter from the NBC chairman to the chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission confirming these facts,” Assam said.
He added that the same NBC map formed the basis of the Supreme Court’s April 2012 judgment, which ruled that Cross River State lost its maritime boundary following the implementation of the Green Tree Agreement, arising from the ICJ decision.
“There has never been any contention since then,” he said.
According to Assam, the current disagreement centres on the physical location of 218 newly identified oil wells, whose coordinates were jointly verified by relevant government agencies.
“The joint committee of the state surveyors-general, the National Boundary Commission, the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission, and the Office of the Surveyor-General of the Federation carried out physical identification, inspection and plotting of the coordinates of these 218 oil wells,” he said.
Emphasising the scientific certainty of geographical data, he argued that coordinates are immutable and decisive.
“Coordinates do not change. The only permanent thing on this earth is coordinates. If an oil well is plotted at a particular point, that point will remain forever,” Assam said.
He explained that entitlement to oil-derived revenue depends strictly on whether such coordinates fall within a state’s recognised territory.
“If those coordinates fall offshore, outside Nigeria’s coastal boundary, then Cross River State cannot claim entitlement, because it is not a littoral state,” he said.
While acknowledging Cross River State’s right to contest the findings, Assam insisted that the solution lies in technical verification, not political argument.
“They have a right to insist. But the way forward is for the technical committee to sit down, for both sides to plot these coordinates on the map, and for the National Boundary Commission to determine where the oil wells fall,” he said.
He maintained that no amount of dispute would alter established geographical facts.
“At no time will those coordinates change the boundaries of Cross River State or Akwa Ibom State,” Assam added.
Boluwatife Enome
Follow us on:
