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Tag: Obasanjo

  • Fire guts Obasanjo’s hill top home

    Fire guts Obasanjo’s hill top home

    A section of the multi-million naira mansion of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in Abeokuta, Ogun State, went up in flames on Thursday.

    Members of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, the Nigeria Police Force, State Security Service and close friends of the ex-president battled to contain the fire from spreading to other parts of the sprawling estate.

    Ogun State Fire Service truck marked OG 122 AO9 roared into the compound an hour after the fire was detected and was joined by another ten minutes later.

    The Nation gathered that the fire which started at about 4:30pm gutted Obasanjo’s office within the building and it is not yet clear what caused it.

     

  • Obasanjo: we’ve lost compatriots

    Obasanjo: we’ve lost compatriots

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has expressed shock at the death of Governor Patrick Yakowa of Kaduna State, the former National Security Adviser (NSA) Gen. Owoye Azazi and four others in a helicopter crash.

    The naval helicopter crashed in Okoroba community, Bayelsa State on Saturday, killing Yakowa, Azazi, their aides and the two pilots.

    Obasanjo, who reacted from the United States (US), told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on telephone that he received the news of the crash and casualty with shock and regret.

    “This is indeed a tragedy,” he said, “our nation has lost compatriots whose contributions have been invaluable and who would still have been giving their best to our development.”

    The former President expressed his heartfelt condolence to the families of the bereaved and prayed that God should grant them needed succour.

    “I pray that God in His infinite mercies, grants the deceased eternal rest,” Obasanjo said.

     

  • Obasanjo mourns Yakowa, Azazi

    Obasanjo mourns Yakowa, Azazi

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has expressed shock at the death of Governor Patrick Yakowa of Kaduna, Gen. Owoye Azazi, former National Security Adviser, and four others in Saturday’s helicopter crash in Bayelsa.

    The naval helicopter crashed in Okoroba community in Bayelsa State on Saturday, killing Yakowa, Azazi, their aides, the pilot and co-pilot.

    Obasanjo, who is in the United States, told the News Agency of Nigeria on telephone that he received news of the crash and casualty with shock and regret.

    ”This is indeed a tragedy,” he said. “Our nation has lost compatriots whose contributions have been invaluable and who would still have been giving their best to our development.”

    The former President expressed his heartfelt condolence to the families of the bereaved and prayed that God should grant them needed succour.

    ” I pray that God in His infinite mercies grants the deceased eternal rest,” Obasanjo said in the interview with NAN.

     

  • Critic Obasanjo sticks to his guns

    Critic Obasanjo sticks to his guns

    Last weekend in Abeokuta, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the self-confessed number one patriotic critic, gleefully reiterated to the visiting Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) national chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, just how much he enjoyed commenting on national issues and needling President Goodluck Jonathan. “If there is anything that requires my own comment, position or views, I will say it,” said the former president magisterially. “It is only when you kill me that I will stop doing so. It is my passion, patriotism and love that will continue to make me say my own. If something inimical to the growth of the PDP is being done, I will talk.” There is no statement in all of modern Nigerian political history that is as self-righteous. Well, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but it is not outrageously far from Obasanjo’s enduring sanctimoniousness, especially seeing that he was responding to the cold war the media said he was fighting with Jonathan, his estranged political son.

    But the former president was not done. Immensely gratified as he held court, Obasanjo began to soar lyrically and philosophically into higher realms as his visitors deferred to him. “The country, the party and government,” he began gravely and syllogistically, “would remain my primary concern, because, if there is no Nigeria, there will not be a party, and if there is no party, there will be nothing to govern on the platform of the party.” And then with absolute deadpan he delivered this clincher: “Even when I was in prison, I was not quiet. Those who want me and the party chairman (Tukur) to quarrel; this visit will keep them quiet. But my mouth will not be quiet.”

    The reason for this excursion into logic, lyricism and smugness is that the PDP and perhaps, too, Jonathan, have embraced the view that Obasanjo is angry with the presidency over a number of issues, mostly undisclosed. Believing that the former president’s increasingly trenchant dismissal of Jonathan’s policies and style could prove injurious to the party’s chances in 2015, PDP bigwigs have been anxious to placate the offended two-term president. History teaches the party leaders that Obasanjo’s relentless criticisms often do not bode well for a sitting president, whether military or civilian. President Shehu Shagari (1979-1983) felt the sting of Obasanjo’s waspish tongue; Gen Ibrahim Babangida (1985-1993) was more than twice cut to the quick; Gen Sani Abacha (1993-1998) attempted to do something drastic about Obasanjo’s acerbity but came to grief as dramatically as he tried to put the complaining Otta farmer down; and neither the late President Umaru Yar’Adua nor Jonathan has fared better with the patriotic critic’s remorseless pummeling.

    Obasanjo has done his best to downplay the so-called cold war between himself and the president. As he told Tukur during the Abeokuta visit, it required patriotism and loyalty to party to make comments on issues, country and party politics. It is doubtful whether Obasanjo was being evasive. He really meant what he said; and he reflected what he genuinely believed. But what is not apparent to those who have had dealings with Obasanjo, including the PDP bigwigs, is that the former president is permanently engaged in saprophytic relationship with other politicians, especially his godsons. He wouldn’t be relevant if his godsons (and successors) were not declining in competence and value. His criticisms are thus the only nutrients that give him life, make him relevant, convince everybody of his invincibility and infallibility, and must therefore be conveyed elaborately and, unfortunately for his victims, garishly.

    There will not be an end to Obasanjo’s rage and self-righteousness. As he morbidly put it himself, only death could still his shrill denunciations of his opponents inside and outside the party, the fools he is determined not to suffer gladly, and even his betters whom he often views contemptuously. For in the former president’s cosmogony, there is only one man – Obasanjo. Everyone that came before him was insignificant; and everyone that comes after him is inconsequential.

     

     

  • I am still alive – Obasanjo

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has dispelled rumours about his death, saying, “am still alive anyway.”

    He said this when he met with the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur in Abeokuta on Saturday.

    Obasanjo expressed worry why people should spread death rumour about him.

    He said that keeping quiet on issues of national importance was not the best option for him because of his love for Nigeria.

    “Because, if there is no Nigeria, there will not be a party and if there is no party, there will be nothing to govern on the platform of the party.

    “If there is anything that requires my own comment, position or views I will say it.

    “It is my passion, patriotism and love that will continue to make me say my own. If I see something that is inimical to the growth of the party, I will talk,” the News Agency of Nigeria quoted the former president as saying to Tukur.

    Obasanjo expressed his delight over Tukur’s visit, describing the PDP chieftain a respected leader.

     

     

  • Computer Society honours Imoke,Obasanjo, Ovia

    The Nigerian Computer Society, a body of over 10,000 computer professionals in the country, has conferred its Honorary Fellowship Award on Governor Liyel Imoke of Cross River State.

    Also honoured by the society at its just concluded Nigerian Information Technology Merit Award (NITMA) in Lagos were former President Olusegun Obasanjo and former managing director of Zenith Bank Plc, Mr. Jim Ovia.

    NCS President, Sir Demola Aladekomo, said on the occasion that the awards were in recognition of the exceptional achievements and services rendered by the recipients which have accelerated IT development in Nigeria.

    On the award conferred on Imoke, Aladekomo explained that the governor has been found worthy of the recognition for advancing technology development not only in his state, but also in the South-South region and nationally.

    According to him, through Imoke’s exceptional leadership Cross River State has implemented technology projects that have improved education, public service delivery and job creation.”

    Describing Imoke as “an apostle of innovation”, Aladekomo said the governor’s administration has invested massively in IT deployment and he is a public servant that has continually used his high visibility and influence as Senator and Governor to support and advance the cause of technology development in Nigeria.

    Imoke was also found deserving of the honour for being the engine behind the establishment of the world class knowledge cluster known as the Tinapa Knowledge City (TKC).

    “Furthermore, under his watch, Cross River state has aggressively supported and invested in the promotion of software development in Nigeria by single handedly hosting several National Software Conferences organised by the Institute of Software Practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON), an NCS interest group.

    “Senator Liyel Imoke is a seasoned administrator, innovation champion and technology evangelist,” the NCS President said.

    Receiving the award on behalf of the governor, Special Adviser on ICT to Cross River State, Mr. Odo Effiong, expressed the governor’s appreciation for the recognition, stressing that the award would further encourage the state to continue to invest more in driving ICT development and innovation in the country.

  • Obasanjo, Aregbesola meet on Orile-Owu chieftaincy tussle

    Obasanjo, Aregbesola meet on Orile-Owu chieftaincy tussle

    •Ex-president inaugurates Ige’s statue

    Former President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday visited Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola on the selection of the Olowu of Orile-Owu in Ayedade Local Government Area.

    Obasanjo arrived at the Governor’s Office in Osogbo, the state capital, around 3pm.

    He was accompanied by about 20 Owu indigenes, including the Secretary of the Owu Development Foundation, Prof. Gbolagade Ayoola, and other officers of the group.

    Obasanjo said he was “flabbergasted and ambushed” by the reception he received from the Aregbesola administration.

    Orile-Owu is believed to be the ancestral home of all Owu people in the country and the diaspora, and Obasanjo is the Balogun of the Owu Kingdom, which expands to Kwara, Osun and Ogun states.

    Obasanjo said he was in the state at the instance of the Owu Foundation to provide a lasting and amicable solution to the chieftaincy crisis rocking the ancient town.

    He told the governor that he met “an alarming situation” among the people of Orile-Owu in their attempt to select the next Olowu, after the tragic demise of the former Olowu, Oba Moses Adejobi.

    Adejobi and his wife, Funmilayo, died in an accident on the Gbongan-Ibadan expressway on March 15, last year.

    The former president lost his sense of humour during the visit, as the indigenes publicly disagreed among themselves.

    Obasanjo said he had done his best by persuading the warring parties to give peace a chance, adding that he had no plan of imposing a candidate on them.

    He said: “What I met was disturbing. I had to set up a committee to look into the issues raised by the aggrieved members of the town on the obaship tussle. I told the committee to make wide consultations and came to know that many of the aggrieved people wanted recognition.

    “Before we came here this afternoon, I tried to talk to all of them. Where it was necessary to cajole, beg and prostrate for some people, I did, but I must say the matter is unfinished. So, we are still trying to make those affected agree and later make a recommendation to the state government for consideration and approval.”

    Obasanjo unveiled the statue of the late Afenifere Leader and former Governor of the Old Oyo State, Chief Bola Ige, which was erected at the entrance of the Governor’s Office.

    The Governor’s Office was named after the late former Attorney-General of the Federation by former Governor Adebisi Akande.

    The statue of the late Ige was built by the Aregbesola administration in recognition of his contributions to the growth of democracy in Osun and the country.

    Aregbesola, who led his deputy, Otunba Titi Laoye-Tomori; Secretary to the State Government Moshood Adeoti; Chief of Staff Gboyega Oyetola and the Acting State Chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Elder Adebiyi Adelowo and others to receive Obasanjo, praised the former president for intervening in the chieftaincy issue.

    He said: “As a government, we have tried as much as possible to remove ourselves from obaship matters. We allow the process to be transparent and leave it in the hands of the communities involved.”

    The governor urged the people of Orile-Owu not to misunderstand Obasanjo’s intervention as an attempt to impose a candidate on them.

    Presenting the state’s flag and audio compact disks of the state anthem to Obasanjo, Aregbesola said: “We are still part of Nigeria and we will remain part of Nigeria, but we have the right to have our own Coat of Arms and anthem as a federating state in the country.”

  • Obasanjo in Ghana

    Obasanjo in Ghana

    Nigeria’s Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is a fairly well-known African leader, having presided over the affairs of his country twice. His reputation as a leader, whether democratic or authoritarian, has however not quite matched his fame as a long-standing ruler. Even then such fame as he continues to enjoy has made him a prime candidate for African Union (AU) or Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) missions. If he cannot be trusted to carry out those missions with the perspicacity of a true statesman, so the feeling goes on the continent, he can at least be relied on to handle them with the weight of his presence and renown. This probably explained why the AU/ECOWAS appointed him to head their observer mission to the February/March presidential/run-off elections in Senegal. It is a tribute to his disputatiousness and ineffectiveness that he made the assignment a controversial one. Now, again, ECOWAS has made him the head of its observer mission to monitor the presidential election in Ghana. This time, he is not expected to undermine the little fame he has left, notwithstanding his propensity for the controversial.

    If the two continental and regional bodies are serious about advancing the cause of democracy in Africa, it is time they began to search for the right candidates to head their observer missions. It should gladden the heart of Nigerians that their former president is entrusted with continental and regional responsibilities; but they are keenly aware that he is the wrongest candidate for the job on account of his anti-democratic credentials. Nigerians are not so parochial as not to appreciate when the wrong honour is being done them. Nor are they so mystified as not to know that Obasanjo’s repeated and continuous appointment for such delicate missions is a reflection of both regional and continental unease with the principles and values of democracy. Africa may be more democratic than it was some 20 years ago, but such democracy as they now practice falls short of universal standards.

    I acknowledge that none of the observer missions Obasanjo led in the past few years has miscarried. His modest successes are, however, less a function of his wise counsel and assiduousness than they signpost the iron determination of the host countries to get their democracy right. In the February/March presidential elections in Senegal, Obasanjo had blunderingly suggested to the angry and restless Senegalese electorate to offer a two-year tenure extension to ex-President Abdoulaye Wade who was hotly disputing with the opposition the correct interpretation of the country’s presidential tenure. Obasanjo had in that instance tried to act as a political scientist or statistician, having observed that Wade wanted three more years while some stakeholders were willing to concede only one year. The main opposition led by Mr Macky Sall had offered none; and Obasanjo struck for the mean by offering two years. For someone sent to Senegal by AU and ECOWAS to mediate a disputatious pre-election period and ensure sound adherence to democratic principles, it was distressing to hear the former Nigerian president talk and seem arrantly self-important. In the end, during the run-off election on March 25, wise counsel prevailed, and the Senegalese electorate booted out Wade, voted in Sall, and disgraced Obasanjo who had prided himself on some unfounded originality and tactical ingenuity.

    To prove his diplomatic and political malfeasances were not an aberration, Obasanjo had earlier displayed a stark lack of judgement in Sierra Leone when in 2007 he backed the then vice president and presidential candidate of the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP), Solomon Ekuma Berewa, for the presidency in that year’s election. He didn’t need to, though he had travelled to that country to dedicate a youth centre named after him. The All Peoples Congress (APC) candidate, the more polished Ernest Bai Koroma, won the election of that year to assume the presidency of Sierra Leone. But after leading a business delegation to the country of six million people last month, Obasanjo simply took sides and declared Mr Koroma as favourite to win the November 17 election. Many commentators in Sierra Leone concluded that Obasanjo was unprincipled and motivated by wrong and base motives. Some even said that his endorsements should be watched with care because the former Nigerian leader did not have the reputation of a statesman and democrat, and that electoral malpractices followed him everywhere, including those he engineered himself.

    But by far the most important fact that should disqualify Obasanjo from heading any election monitoring group is his own record as an elected president. None of the two elections he conducted while in office was adjudged free and fair. In fact that of 2007 was by universal acclaim dismissed as the worst election anywhere in the world. Observer missions sent by many countries, including the European Union, described the poll as fraudulent and did not reflect the true wishes of the people of Nigeria. Even the main beneficiary of that election, the late Umaru Yar’Adua, declared the election to be flawed. To further demean himself, apart from conducting a fraudulent election, Obasanjo also strove desperately to secure tenure extension for himself, climbing down from asking for three years, to plaintively asking for two years or even one. Nigeria has still not been able to live down the appalling choices he foisted on the country in 2007 and 2011.

    Neither the AU nor ECOWAS will take the wise counsel of always appointing someone really qualified intellectually and temperamentally to monitor elections on the continent, mediate electoral or governmental disputes, and generally serve as facilitator for anything that would advance the cause of democracy. The reason, as the Mo Ibrahim Foundation has found out in its frustrating effort to award leadership prizes over the years, is because the continent is replete with uninspired leaders, of which, sadly, Obsanjo is the archetype. Until the quality of leadership increases in Africa, the continent’s leaders will continue to be inured to the weaknesses exhibited by their colleagues. And since Obasanjo fancies himself a statesman and has an exaggerated opinion of his capacity and accomplishments, he will continue to angle for diplomatic jobs and offer himself as a champion of causes far beyond his ken.

    Monitored or not, and by Obasanjo or any other, Ghana will get its electoral dynamics right. It has a prouder democratic history than Nigeria, and has managed, in spite of its hunger for modernisation, to establish and run a humanistic government, one that is at once as unprepossessing as it is somewhat ruthlessly efficient. Ghana may not be as copiously intellectual as Nigeria, or as boisterously exciting and culturally variegated, but in its seeming staleness and staidness, it has proven to be a better avatar of governance, moderation, innovation and surprisingly piquant traditionalism. People like Obasanjo should go to Ghana to learn a thing or two about the eternal verities of life, not to monitor elections for which they are least qualified. Perhaps a course on Nkrumahism would do them some good and positively redirect and refine the amorphous Pan-Africanism they struggled to acquire in their youth, and which pristine version they grew up yearning to embrace, to identify with, and to market.

  • Obasanjo’s recipe for Boko Haram is inhuman

    Obasanjo’s recipe for Boko Haram is inhuman

    SIR: Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, in his latest blistering public criticism of the Federal Government, said President Goodluck Jonathan’s response to the Boko Haram insurgency was slow. This is, no doubt, arguable. He spoke in Warri as the moderator of a public lecture by former External Affairs Minister, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, in honour of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, who was marking his 40th anniversary as a pastor. He seemed to have chosen theright forum to express his concern over a scourge that has become a national security problem, but his position was defective. The former president reportedly accused his successors of allowing the Boko Haram insurgency to fester. But Obasanjo retains the unenviable record as being the only former Nigerian leader (apart from General Muhammadu Buhari who is understandably an oppositional presidential candidate) who relishes open castigationof the seeming actions or inactions of the government of the day. The impression Obasanjo creates about himself is that he is not happy to see the other man in the leadership saddle. This tends to confirm the views in certain quarters that he has the penchant to destroy people than to build them. At a point, he donned the garb of a conciliator by going to Maiduguri amid the escalating Boko Haram insurgency to seek to broker a truce. He claimed to have obtained the permission of President Goodluck Jonathan before embarking on the enterprise. At the end of the day, the move turned awry when his host in Maiduguri with whom he sought to kick-start the process of reconciliation, was killed about three days after he (Obasanjo) left the town. But today, it is convenient for Obasanjo to wrongly accuse Jonathan of slowness in responding to the Boko Haram insurgency simply because he wants to portray the current administration as weak and incompetent. It is also game for Obasanjo to stomp on the Jonathan presidency just because he was instrumental to the political arrangement that threw up the Umaru Yar’Adua-Jonathan presidential ticket in 2007.

    The truth, however, is that Obasanjo cannot approbate and reprobate at the same time on the same issue as he has tended to do in the Boko Haram case. Here is a man who went to Maiduguri purportedly on a reconciliation mission now turning round to recommend the Odi treatment for the town of Maiduguri and perhaps other towns in the North just to nip the Boko Haram insurgency in the bud. He would have loved to see Jonathan deploy soldiers to the flashpoints to level the places – annihilate the innocent and the ‘criminals’ in a military action. To Obasanjo, this is pro-activeness. This is how to show that the Federal Government or the President is not weak. This approach does not accommodate rationality that is grounded on humanity: how can you commit genocide because you want to take out some criminals? While reflecting on the crisis at Odi, Obasanjo had said at the Warri forum: “I attended to a problem that I saw; I sent soldiers. They were killed, 19 of them (were) decapitated. If I had allowed that to continue, I would not have the authority to send security anywhere again. I attended to it…. If you say you do not want a strong leader, who can have all the characteristics of a leader, including the fear of God, then, you have a weak leader and the rest of the problem is yours.”

    Obasanjo claims Jonathan’s response is slow. He also claims that his successor, the late Yar’Adua, was soft on corruption; but I ask: when he (Obasanjo) became president and inherited the problem of militancy in the Niger Delta region, what did he do very quickly to end the scourge? Was it not the late Yar’Adua who ended it with his famous Amnesty deal?

    Indeed, on both scores, Boko Haram and corruption, Obasanjo has been unfair to his successors. It is in his character to be so disposed; only that I am surprised that he is behaving as if he has fallen out of favour with the government he helped to enthrone. But then by recommending the Odi recipe for the Boko Haram insurgents, Obasanjo has succeeded in showing to the world the inhumanity and irrationality of his presidency. He cannot in a self-ignited frenzy railroad a cruel recipe on Jonathan; and, as far as I am concerned, the president’s systematic and multi-faceted approach at tackling the Boko Haram insurgency, which factors in the innocent civilian population, is the best in the circumstance and should therefore be sustained.

     

    • Callistus Omoregie,

    Benin City, Edo State.

     

  • Determination of whether a state is a littoral state within Nigeria is a question of fact-2

    As the plaintiff is no longer a littoral state and as it has no Maritime Territory, the 76 oil wells which now lie offshore within another maritime territory not that of the plaintiff cannot be attributed to the plaintiff. In order that any Nigerian littoral state may be entitled to the attribution of any off-shore oil field/well within the 200 meters Isobath and the derivations therefrom, the oil field/well must lie off-shore but within the state’s Maritime Territory which means that the state itself must abut and/or lie contiguous or proximate to the sea and have a Maritime Territory up to the 200 meters Isobath.

    The Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission did not demarcate any boundary at the August 2008 Inter-Agencies Kano retreat. The plaintiff would have remained a littoral state if the effort made by President Olusegun Obasanjo to retain the western part of Bakassi Peninsula in Nigeria had succeeded. The plaintiff would have retained the direct access to the sea. The 1st defendant emphasized

    1. The letter dated 4th January 2005 addressed to the former President Olusegun Obasanjo caption “Akwa Ibom/Cross River Interstate Maritime Boundary”.

    2. The letter dated 31st October 2006 on the political solution in respect of oil wells between Cross River State/Akwa Ibom State/Rivers State were based on the negotiation and expectation that the western parts of the Bakassi Peninsula would be retained as a Nigerian Territory. The International Court of Justice judgment was delivered in 2002. The Greentree Agreement between Nigerian and Cameroon governments was signed on June 12, 2006 while handing over of the entire Bakassi Peninsula was eventually completed on the August 14, 2008. There is now in existence a National Boundary Commission 2008 Map showing the seven littoral states in Nigeria after the handover of Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon of which the plaintiff is not one of them. The status of the plaintiff was changed by the ICJ judgment which also disentitled the plaintiff from deriving benefits from the 76 oil wells which now belong to the 2nd defendant.

    The 1st defendant raised the following issues for determination –

    1. Whether there had been an agreement between the parties upon which the 1st defendant could be stopped from resiling.

    2. Whether the role played by the 1st defendant at her Inter-Agency Retreat held in Kano in August 2008 could be interpreted as a usurpation of the adjudicatory jurisdiction of the court.

    3. Whether from the combined effects of the judgment of the International Court of Justice and the judgment of this court in Suit No. SC.124/1999 which is reported as A-G Gross River State v. A-G Federation & anor (2005) 15 NWLR (Pt.947) Pg.71, the plaintiff has a seaward boundary, estuarine sector or maritime boundary to entitle it to oil wells located off shore.

    The 2nd defendant, Attorney-General Akwa Ibom State adopted and relied on documents as follows – 2nd defendant’s 1st Amended Statement of Defence deemed filed on 14/5/2012; the witnesses statement of Okokon Essien and Augustine Dominic Odokwo the Akwa Ibom State Surveyor-General and Director of Civil Litigation of the Ministry of Justice for and on behalf of the 2nd defendant, the 2nd defendant’s Final Written Address in disputing the claim of the plaintiff to the attribution of 76 oil wells to Akwa Ibom State.

    According to the brief facts of the 2nd defendant’s case, these 76 oil wells are located offshore the coast of Nigeria to which the plaintiff – the Cross River State represented by the Attorney-General of the State lays claim for the purpose of the payment of 13% derivation revenue pursuant to Section 162(2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999. The statement of claim of the plaintiff captions the bone of contention in this suit as follows –

    “This unilateral removal of the plaintiffs name among the beneficiaries of the 13% derivation fund and the recalcitrance of the 1st defendant to change the position culminated in the filing of this case.”

     

    As at the time of the institution of this suit, the controversial 76 oil wells were and are still attributed to Akwa Ibom State represented by the 2nd defendant. The Inter-Agency meeting of the Revenue Mobilization and Fiscal Commission held in August 2008 followed and relied on the 2008 littoral states maritime boundaries delineations by the National Boundary Commission. The letter of the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission to the Accountant General of the Federation in March 2009 forwarding the 2009 Revised 13% Derivation Indices for the payment of Derivation funds to littoral states omitted the name of Cross River State. It was decided at the RMAFC Inter-Agency meeting of the 15th April 2008 that in line with the National Boundary Commission Littoral States boundaries delineations

    The offshores oil wells will be attributed to the littoral states jointly by all the agencies using the co-ordinates to be supplied by the Department of Petroleum Resources under the supervision of the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission.”

    The RMAFC Inter-Agency Report was produced in August 2008. By virtue of Section 6(1)(b) of the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission Act Cap R7 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004, the RMAFC is empowered to-

    a. “Monitor the accruals to and disbursement of revenue from the ‘Federation Account and review from time to time, the revenue allocation formulae and principles in operation to ensure conformity with changing realities.

    b. Section 6(2)(b) of the Act also gives the RMAFC the power to demand and obtain regular and relevant information data or returns from any government agencies.”

    On the other hand, Section 7(c) of the National Boundary Commission Act Cap N10 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004 gives the National Boundary Commission the power to –

    a. Define and delimitate boundaries between states, local government areas or communities in the Federation and between Nigeria and her neighbours in accordance with delimitation instrument or document established for that purpose.

    At the RMAFC Inter-Agency Meeting of 15th April 2008, Cross River State was factually affirmed as a non-littoral state in Nigeria sequel to the judgment of the International Court of Justice in 2002 in the Cameroon/Nigeria Boundary dispute.

    The 2nd defendant gave the qualification of a littoral state, whether in Nigeria or anywhere in the world or whether a sovereign country or a state in a federation. Such state must have a territory which must abut or be contiguous to the sea; it must be possible to have direct access to the sea from the state without passing through any other state’s territory. Sequel to the judgment of the International Court of Justice delivered in 2002 and the ultimate execution in August 2008, Cross River State became landlocked and no part of its territory is contiguous to nor abuts the sea. The judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Attorney-General of Cross River State v. Attorney-General of the Federation and one other (2005) 15 NWLR (Pt.947) Pg.71 pronounced that Cross River State has no maritime boundary with Akwa Ibom State. The 2nd defendant highlighted that prior to the judgment of the International Court of Justice, Cross River State qualified as a littoral state because as at that time it had access to the sea through the Bakassi Peninsula and the estuarian part of the inland waters; the “Cross River”. The Cross River State used to claim a riparian territory abutting the sea through the peninsula and the estuary which then were part of Nigeria.

    The Bakassi Peninsula lies contiguous to the sea while the Cross River estuary empties into the sea. The fact of Bakassi Peninsula and the Cross River Estuary being part of Cross River State was the sole qualification and reason for being adjudged as a Nigeria littoral state. The National Boundary Commission 2008 Maritime Boundary Map did not reflect Cross River State as a littoral state. The 2nd defendant maintained that by virtue of Cross River State not being a littoral state and therefore not having any maritime territory, the 76 oil wells which are the subject matter of dispute in this suit and which lie offshore, within a maritime territory cannot be attributed to Cross River State. For any Nigerian littoral state to be entitled to the attribution of any offshore oil field/well within the 200 meters isobaths, the oil field/well must be offshore but within the State’s maritime territory which means that the state itself must abut and/or lie contiguous or proximate to the sea and have a maritime territory up to the 200 metres isobaths or as the case may be in some circumstances have a riparian territory abutting the sea.