EASTERN OBOLO STAKEHOLDERS SET FOR A SHOWDOWN WITH AKSG OVER REMAPPING OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT..DESCRIBES MOVES BY HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY AS CONTEMPTUOUS OF COURT ORDER

 

The people of   Eastern Obolo local government area of Akwa Ibom State are not only prepared for a showdown with Akwa Ibom State Government, but  are  battle ready  to resist  vehemently with their blood and by  every legitimate means should the 7th Assembly of the Akwa Ibom  State House of Assembly insist on going ahead to deliberate and perhaps subsequently pass into a sponsored subsisting controversial bill before it, said to be aimed at annexing the people of Eastern Obolo Local Area with any other local government area. 

Speaking on April 5, 2023 on the proposed  remapping of the local government during a press conference held in Uyo, stakeholders of Eastern Obolo said the bill was obnoxious, anti-people, ill-advised, insensitive  and grossly discriminatory in all ramifications against the ancestry and rights of Eastern Eastern Obolo people as bonafide entity.   

In a statement rising from the press conference, jointly signed for and on behalf of Ilima Obolo, a pan-Eastern Obolo organization, by the International President of the body, Comrade Unyeawaji Z. Ikpaikor, and International  Secretary, Dr. Amah M. Williams, they described the bill as a reckless violation of the rights of the people and warned that failure of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly to promptly rescind action on the bill shall, among other things, amount to deliberate contempt of the Court.

It would be recalled that on the 16th day of September 2021, Akwa Ibom State 

House of Assembly, via a motion sponsored by  Hon. David 

Lawrence, passed a resolution directing the Surveyor General of the 

State to redesign the map of Akwa Ibom State. The  motion, it  was learnt  did not, according to Eastern Obolo stakeholders,  go well with them as it was bound to affect their ancestral geography and rights as a people. 

It was gathered  that, in 2021, a court of competent jurisdiction had intervened in the matter and accordingly issued injunctions that, according to Ilima Obolo, was still subsisting and  binding. 

Part of the press  statement therefore reads: "We hereby expose the unprecedented, brutal and contemptuous 

violation of a valid and subsisting judgment of a court of competent 

jurisdiction by the Akwa Ibom State of House of Assembly and the 

government at large. This gruesome directive was a flagrant violation and an affront to the procedure provided for in section 8(4) of the Constitution of the 

Federal Republic of Nigeria. It is worthy of mention that the said 

directive was politically and maliciously motivated ".

Describing the motion as a calculated and mischievous  attempt by Hon. David Lawrence to undermine the littoral status of Eastern Obolo through gerrymandering, the statement further observed:

"It is instructive to note that the people of Eastern Obolo are fully aware that this desperate moves even in the 

face of a subsisting court judgment, to alter or adjust the map of Akwa 

Ibom State is just for the sole purpose of ceding to Onna, Mkpat Enin 

and Ikot Abasi the numerous oil wells and natural resources deposit 

in Eastern Obolo in a bid to making these local government areas 

beneficiaries of the 3% host communities fund provided for in the 

Petroleum Industry Act.

"The redesigned map heated the polity in Akwa Ibom State and 

particularly Eastern Obolo Local Government Area. We make bold to say that the redesigned map adversely and significantly affected Eastern Obolo 

LGA as several villages have been ceded and shared to other Ibibio 

Local Government Areas such as Ikot Abasi, Mkpat Enin and Onna.

That the people of Eastern Obolo fumed by the despotic, undemocratic and illegal tendency to balkanize their ancestral lands, 

approached the court of law in Suit No.: HU/341/2021 between 

Joseph Daniel Ekoyork & Ors (suing on behalf of the people of 

Eastern Obolo) v Akwa Ibom State & Ors., in a bid to  stop the said 

 barbaric  and anti- people action of Akwa Ibom State Government, using 

the instrumentality of legislation. 

It made further reference to the Akwa Ibom State High Court, sitting in Uyo and presided over by His Lordship, Honourable Justice Edem E. Akpan, whereby upon hearing 

arguments canvassed by counsel to all the parties, delivered a well reasoned judgment in favour of the People of Eastern Obolo restraining Akwa Ibom State Government from doing any act which may tantamount to remapping/adjusting the boundaries of Eastern 

Obolo".

The consequential outcome, the statement recalls, emphatically held that: "(a) the 3rd Defendant cannot via a motion/resolution or 

howsoever adjust, remap or direct the 5th Defendant to adjust the 

boundaries of the local government within the 1st Defendant 

without strict compliance with the provisions of Section 8(4) of 

the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, as 

amended. " (b) that the boundary adjustment/remapping purportedly carried out by the 5th Defendant through the resolution of the 3rd Defendant, 

particularly as it affects the Plaintiffs’ Local Government Area, 

which is without strict compliance with the provision of Section 

8(4) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, 

as amended, is unconstitutional, null and void. "(c) that the Defendant either by themselves or through their privies 

and agents are hereby restrained from remapping/adjusting the 

boundaries of the Plaintiffs’ Local Government or gazetting the 

map purportedly carried out by the 5th Defendant based on the 

resolution issued by the 3rd Defendant, without strict compliance 

with the provisions of Section 8(4) of the Constitution of the 

Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, as amended.”

As emphasized in the press statement,  Ilima Obolo wondered why, " despite the clear order of a court of competent jurisdiction, the 

Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly made itself a rubber stamp 

in the hands of expansionists and land grabbers with the sole intention 

of legitimizing the illegitimate and nefarious desires of this 

expansionists within the government. 

The Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly that is supposed to be 

concerned with making laws for the development of the whole of  

Akwa Ibom State is now fanning  the embers  of tribalism and sectionalism via the instrumentality of legislation", it was stated, thus calling on the Akwa Ibom State government to intervene and ensure that justice was done for the sake of peace and peaceful coexistence that have characterized Eastern Obolo over the years.