Imoke: Cross River is Insolvent
•FG to review boundary adjustment issue June 9
By Collins Edomaruse, 05.31.2009
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Barely three months after 67 oil wells hitherto belonging to Cross River State were ceded to Akwa Ibom State by National Boundary Comm-ission (NBC) and Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RM-AFC), Governor Liyel Imoke of Cross River has declared his state insolvent.
But a committee raised by President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to review the development is scheduled to begin sitting on June 9 at the Presidential Villia, Abuja. Vice-President Goodluck, who is also chairman of the NBC, will preside over the meeting that would also be attended by officials of both commissions, Cross River, Akwa Ibom and Rivers States respectively.
Yar’Adua’s action, Imoke said, was a reflection of the rage the President expressed when he learnt through a petition he sent to him that Cross River State has been de-listed from the league of oil producing states in the country.
Briefing newsmen in Calabar on Friday as part of activities marking the 10th anniversary of democracy in Nigeria, Imoke said it was regrettable and a thing of great concern that the state can hardly meet up its statutory obligations to the people of the state.
He said following the decision of the commissions to delist the state from the league of oil producing states in the country, the state has dropped to the 36th position on the federation account ladder.
Imoke also said that following the delisting of the state, his administration was almost going cap-in-hand to meet its statutory obligations to the people of the state. “I told Yar’Adua in my petition that my state is insolvent. He was shocked. He said he was not aware of the decision to de-list Cross River State from the league of oil producing states.
“The Vice-President, who is chairman of NBC, also said he was not aware of such decision by the NBC,” Imoke explained.
Giving insight into the circumstances that culminated in the ceding of the wells to his neighbours, Akwa Ibom, Imoke said: “I gathered from the RMAFC and the NBC that their action was based on a Supreme Court judgement on the matter. I told them that there was no such judgement. The meeting itself was necessitated by a letter to the commissions by the Akwa Ibom State Government asking the commissions to use historical application between Rivers and Akwa Ibom States in the settlement of their boundary issue used between it (Akwa Ibom) and Cross River. No disputes between Cross River and Akwa Ibom States. Unfortunately, the commissions used new indices without invitation to the states, the President and the Vice-President.”
For the purpose of clarification, the Supreme Court had ruled in 2004 on littoral states that… “In the light of the observations I have expressed above regarding the NBC revised boundary delimitation, I do not feel comfortable to grant the declaration sought. Until both Nigeria and Cameroon conclude their negotiations to finality and the international boundary fixed by the International Court of Justice is modified and published, it would be premature for this court to determine the maritime boundary of the two states.”
Going by the new definition, the Governor said: “We are now 36 on the monthly feral allocation ladder.
“We receive N1.1billion monthly as against the N2.2 billion we were getting before the decision became effective from March this year. We have been supplementing the shortfall because we had to fall back on our savings. But that has dried up. Cross River State is insolvent. We carry a huge debt burden. We need the matter to be resolved amicably and urgently by the President,” he pleaded.In a related development, Deputy Senate Leader, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, has said the ceding of Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon was done exclusively by the executive arm of government.
He said the executive did not seek input from any other arm on the Bakassi issue and observed that its failure began when it accepted the legal option in resolving the matter.
He stated this on yesterday in Calabar, while speaking with newsmen on the issue of oil wells in Cross River ceded to neighbouring Akwa Ibom.
He said Bakassi, as at today and by the Nigerian Constitution, was still a Nigerian territory and in Cross River State and that until the constitution was amended, it would remain so.
Wondering why the oil wells were given to Akwa Ibom State, the lawmaker asked: “If the wells are in Bakassi and in Cross River and Bakassi has been ceded to Cameroun, why did the wells not go with Bakassi to Cameroon?''
“And if for any reason the oil wells remained in Nigerian territory, when did they (oil wells) develop legs and move to Akwa Ibom?''
According to him, no boundary adjustment has been carried out between both states in recent time to warant the ceding of the wells to Akwa Ibom.