Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, has called on his Imo State counterpart, Hope Uzodinma, to accept the Supreme Court’s judgement that confirmed Rivers’ ownership of 17 oil wells situated in Akri and Mbede communities in good faith.
The Governor in a statewide broadcast at the weekend promised a soft landing for Imo saying they would explore ways to accommodate any possible compromise from Rivers Government.
Wike blamed Emeka Ihedioha, former governor of Imo State, for the dispute over the oil wells.
According to him:
This, we may readily oblige, despite the betrayals and back-stabbing by Emeka Ihedioha, who in spite of the extensive support and goodwill he received from the government and people of Rivers State to become governor, led the onslaught and created a wedge between two brotherly states that have been living at peace and in friendship with each other.
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The Rivers governor thanked the lawyers, who prosecuted and secured the landmark success for Rivers State and announced the conferment of State’s honours on each of them as Distinguished Service Stars of Rivers
He explained that Rivers was in court with its neighbouring Imo, not to claim victory, but to defend its ownership of the oil wells.
He said:
It bears repeating that the quest to defend our ownership rights through the courts over the Akiri and Mbede oil wells was not intended to claim victory over Imo or any other state.
We also deplore the collusive actions of the NBC, which unfortunately, has become notorious as one of the most corrupt national agency, which has functioned more in causing confusion then resolving boundary disputes.
Wike said while the dispute lingered, the National Boundary Commission (NBC) failed to demarcate the boundaries to establish the proper location and title to the disputed oil wells.
He said instead of ensuring that NBC did its work, Ihedioha repudiated the subsisted 50:50 per cent sharing formula and also made provocative claims as exclusive owners of the oil wells.
He said:
In order to actualised this spurious claims, he (Ihedioha) stealthily wrote a letter dated 9th August 2019 to President Muhammad Buhari and requested for the refund of the sum of N15bn from Rivers State to Imo State as backlog of accrued proceeds from the 13% derivation revenue of the said oil wells.
Acting on Governor Ihedioha’s letter, Mr. President warranted a letter to be written to the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMFAC) through his late Chief of State, Mr. Abba Kyari, to alter the status quo in favour of Imo State without reference to the subsisting dispute and agreement between the two States.
Wike said the Rivers government was surprised by the action because, since 1999, Dr Peter Odili and Achike Udenwa, both former governors of the respective States had agreed to a 50:50 per cent sharing of derivative proceeds from the wells.
He said:
Accordingly, we first applied to the Federal High Court, Abuja and among other reliefs, successfully challenged the powers and authority of Mr. President to give directives to the RMFAC and or interfere in any manner whatsoever with the distribution of public revenues from the distributable pool account, including the Federation Account.
In approaching the Supreme Court in this matter, we believed that the dispute between the two State and the contentious issues are such that the Court can judicially, justly and expeditiously determine with the available facts and supporting evidence, including valid administrative maps, subsisting judgement, and other relevant documents.
