Nigeria Content Online

The Akwa Ibom State
government yesterday said it has filed an application for the review of
the recent Supreme Court judgment asking it to cede 86 oil wells to
neighbouring Rivers State.

The state’s
governor, Godswill Akpabio, said yesterday in a broadcast to the people
that a careful and exhaustive study of the apex court’s verdict has
convinced his government that the judgment was given in error, and
should be reviewed.

According to Mr.
Akpabio, at the inception of his administration, the state had written
to late President Umaru Yar’Adua to protest the injustice in a
controversial political solution transferring some oil wells belonging
to the Akwa Ibom to Rivers. As a way out, President Yar’Adua reportedly
referred the petition to a committee of government agencies, consisting
of the National Boundary Commission (NBC), Office of the Surveyor
General of the Federation, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR)
and the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC),
which recommended that the affected oil wells be returned to Akwa Ibom,
the original owners.

NEXT gathered that
the recommendation attracted a legal challenge by the Rivers State
government, which took the matter before the Supreme Court to protest
the return of the oil wells to Akwa Ibom.

Mr. Akpabio, who
expressed dismay at some sections of the judgment he described as
“deeply troubling to Akwa Ibom people,” saying the terms of the
judgment asking the state to pay Rivers State about N350 billion
(interests inclusive) was “outrageous, regrettable and totally false”
since the state hardly earned up to N350 billion from over 980 oil
wells attributed to Akwa Ibom State since April 2009.

Mr. Akpabio pointed
out that what the state is owing is for revenues collected from the
exploitation of the 86 oil wells for 22 months between April 2009 and
February 2011, against what the Rivers government’s is owing for
revenue collected for over 40 months between January, 2005 and March,
2009.

“Even if this
judgment were to subsist, it is Rivers State government, which would be
obligated to make refunds to Akwa Ibom State after the reconciliation
of accounts. This is because when the political solution referred to by
the eminent judges of the Supreme Court was brokered in 2006 by the
then President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, revenue from the 172 oil wells
earlier arbitrarily taken from Akwa Ibom State by Rivers State were to
be shared on a fifty-fifty basis between both states as from 2005.
However, Rivers State kept the 172 oil wells and collected all the
revenue there-from and all the revenue that accrued from the 172 oil
wells from January, 2005 to March, 2009,” the governor argued.