76 Oil Wells: Revisiting a Historical Wrong
By Emmanuel Ogbeche
The controversy over the 76 oil wells ceded to Akwa Ibom in 2002 from Cross River State over the ill-conceived handing over of Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon is back on the front burner of national discourse. The ceding of the oil wells to Akwa Ibom arose from the misleading claims that Cross River State had lost its coastal and littoral access to the sea. Recent maritime surveys by the Nigeria Navy and Office of the Surveyor General show that Cross River State did not lose its coastal and littoral access to the sea through the Cross River Estuary. For this reason, the state remains entitled to offshore derivation benefits.
It is disconcerting to see how strenuously Akwa Ibom State has opposed this position, relying largely on administrative boundary interpretations. At a meeting to chart a way forward towards the resolution of the over two-decade anomaly at the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) on Thursday, January 29, 2026, in Abuja, the delegation from Akwa Ibom several times tried to stymie the meeting and largely succeeded, and the meeting was adjourned to a later day.
Besides pursuing the boundary determination angle, the Cross River State Government should return to the Supreme Court for the matter to be revisited. The point needs to be made that the Supreme Court does not independently initiate the review of its past decisions; instead, a new case must present a legal question that prompts reconsideration of a prior ruling. The primary method for a case to reach the Court is through a petition for a writ of certiorari, a formal request for the Court to review a decision. While this is not an automatic right, our state has compelling reasons, and with the array of legal minds that we have, it should not be too much to have the apex court revisit the matter in the interest of equity and posterity.
Some may argue that the decision of the court is final. However, there is a reason the principle of stare decisis exists, and it is for such instances in correcting historical wrongs that have upended Cross River’s development and growth through the billions of accruals it has been denied because of the 76 oil wells and more by recent reckoning.
Our argument is simple: laws evolve in response to new understandings or societal changes, and there are new geological and maritime maps that show that Cross River has coastal and littoral access to the sea. Therefore, as the apex court seeks to maintain a general commitment to stability, it should reflect deeply on the socio-economic and political impact the 2002 political decision has had on citizens of Cross River.
One must applaud His Excellency Governor Bassey Otu for his industry, quiet diplomacy, and commitment to redressing this generational miscarriage against the state and its people. What he deserves is the unalloyed support of all well-meaning Cross Riverians to see him get over the line in this weighty matter. The expected victory isn’t just his, but for a generation of Cross Riverians.
Emmanuel Ogbeche is Special Adviser to the Governor on Media, Abuja.
