Lagos — The decision by the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) to relocate 76 oil wells from Cross River State to its neighbour Akwa Ibom has left tons of gall in its wake. The action to an average Cross River person was provocative, reactionary, unreasonable and unconstitutional. They are worried that the action came too soon after the loss of Bakassi to the Republic of Cameroon. Roland Ogbonnaya writes on the feelings of the ordinary man on the street
It is a topic of discussion within the government circle, ministries, at the stadium or even on the street among the commercial motorcycle operators. While the discussion continue to be on the front burner, one can literally feel or touch the pervading anger amongst the citizens on the streets of Calabar, capital of Cross River State.
The source of the anger emanated from the recent decision of the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) to relocate 76 oil wells from Cross River State to its neighbouring state, Akwa Ibom. The action, which the people consider as provocative, reactionary, unreasonable and unconstitutional, was coming few months after part of its territory-Bakassi was ceded to the government of the Republic of Cameroun by the Nigerian government.
By implication, with the allocation of the oil wells to Akwa Ibom State, Cross River State is de-listed from the cartel of the oil-producing States. Added to this is the crediting of the State with a zero allocation from the 13 per cent derivation fund exclusive to oil-producing States. This drastic fall in the revenue stream of the State has placed the state on a virtual collapse curve. This is not only in terms of meeting its wage bill, a daunting primacy of government anytime, but also the funding of programmes and projects, including counterpart financial contributions to interventionist programmes and projects by international agencies.
The feeling of anguish by the Cross River people is captured by the State Governor, Liyel Imoke, who summarised the difficulties and enormous challenges the state has been thrown into as "dire." For them, no national institution dare compromise the destiny of a state and its people as the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, and the National Boundary Commission have done.
For the people both at home and in Diaspora, according to THISDAY investigation, the allocation of the wells to Akwa Ibom State is viewed as conspiracy between RMAFC and the NBC. This conspiracy theory is fuelled by the "clandestine manner" the decision was arrived at by RMAFC and the NBC. The strength of the decision, was rested on a dubious interpretation of a Supreme Court opinion that the littoral status of Cross River State following the ceding of Bakassi to Cameroon cannot be determined, until the international maritime boundary between Nigeria and Cameroon is modified and published, in accordance with the ruling of the International Court of Justice at the Hague.
So the entire episode itself starts from the historical tussle over the ownership of Bakassi. When Cameroon joined issues with Nigeria over the ownership of Bakassi, an oil rich Peninsula on the South East Coast of Nigeria, both countries opted for the arbitration of the International Court of Justice over the issue. This was after the dispute had led to military skirmishes between the two neighbours and attracted the attention of the international community.
In 1994, Cameroon took the matter to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The case was intricate and sensitive requiring the court to re-examine colonial records 100 years back. On the October 10, 2002, the ICJ ruled that Bakassi belongs to the Republic of Cameroon. Against all rational opinion in the country, Nigeria, under President Olusegun Obasanjo accepted the judgment. On June 2006, to the dismay of people of Cross River and Nigeria as a whole, Archibong Town and its environs were handed over to Cameroon. The rest of the disputed territory was ceded to Cameroon on Thursday August 14, 2008, an event that brought tears to many.
These were great challenges the Cross River Government was battling with only for RMAFC and NBC to move the state's 76 oil wells to Akwa Ibom State. The people are saying that the whole exercise smacks of a grand conspiracy, a classic financial coup. They queried why should such a grave decision be based on a letter by the Akwa Ibom State Governor asking for a resolution of the boundary dispute between Cross River and Akwa Ibom State, using the historical application?
Responding to some of the issues surrounding the delisting of the state from oil producing states, Imoke said the immediate effect of the action is the possible crippling of developmental activities in Cross River State. He said as a result, the state's revenue has dropped from N2.2 billion monthly to about a billion Naira monthly. In the light of the prevailing meltdown, he agreed that the prospects for the state are bleak indeed. If Bakassi was ceded to Cameroon in the national interest, the oil wells should also be returned to Cross River State in the national interest, he suggested. The thinking of many people who spoke to THISDAY on the streets of Calabar is that the matter was an act of sabotage to the economic and political interests of Cross River State.
For the Governor, this is a very challenging period. The obvious and immediate challenge/alternative for government is to jerk-up the internal revenue stream. According to investigation, at the time Imoke assumed office, the monthly internal revenue stood at N300 million per month. Now it stands at N600 million per month. However, with the current adverse development, the Governor has expressed his resolve to raise it to at least N800 million monthly. But what will the margin amount to in terms of funding of billion naira projects?
Last week, Imoke agreed that the present predicament will definitely affect the state in so many ways. "First, it just means that we will not be able to introduce new projects and programmes as quickly as we had hoped to do. But we believe that it is a temporary set back, we believe that with President Umaru Musa-Yar'Adua's intervention, all matters relating to oil producing status of the country will be resolved in the next few weeks.
"Again, for us, we do not think that the loss will affect ongoing projects, it may delay the completion of some projects, it may not allow us to embark on new projects for now. But because of our method of planning our budget, we believe that we should be able to address all ongoing projects," Imoke explained.
In the case where the President does not reverse the action already done, the Governor maintained that it will affect the state depending on the price of crude oil. "Sometimes there is excess accruing to the excess crude account that is shared. So we will be affected adversely from both ways that is from the 13 per cent allocation and the excess crude account. That is significant as it is in the region of between N300 million to N500 million monthly.
"We are not a big oil producer like Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Bayelsa or Delta States. Ours is just marginal and regrettably, the little margin we would have had, is lost. We feel that with the intervention, it could be resolved but again, for us, the impact is significant for two reasons: with the economic meltdown, there is a great reduction in the revenue that is available for sharing at all three tiers of government. Secondly, we will carry a huge debt burden.
"We pay out about N400 to N500 million every month as debt repayment. That does not include contractual obligations of the state. And so we lose that amount as debt repayment on a monthly basis and then we lose another of such amount every month as a result of economic meltdown. Like I said before, in Cross River State we lose over a billion naira every month as a result of the effect of these two things - exclusion from oil producing state and the low crude oil price.
Ironically, Imoke said that Cross River State is one of the states in the Federal Republic of Nigeria to become an oil producing state, a littoral state before Akwa Ibom became oil producer in 2002 with the abrogation of the onshore-offshore. Now, the interpretation, according to the Governor, is that with the lost of Bakassi Cross River is no more an oil producing state, which to me hardly makes any sense.
"Are we punished for losing Bakassi and for some definition of Cross River not been littoral state? I find it very fascinating that we are defined as not been littoral and yet between us, Akwa Ibom and nearby states, we are the only state with a seaport. We are supposed to be land locked as a state by some technical definition but in reality, we have a seaport in Calabar. All of these to my mind are inexplicable.
"So it has to be resolved and I believe it swill be resolved in favour of Cross River State. There is other option that is available which is to go to court, but that really is not the best option amongst brother states. Whenever you go to court on a matter, there is always a winner and a loser; it is very unlikely that you would go to court and you will be both winners. You will come out with somebody winning and somebody losing and it creates certain amount of disaffection, bad blood between brothers.
"So to my mind, I think we should make sure we find a sustainable political solution to it as it was in the past. You could recall, in the course of the agitation by the states in Niger Delta in 2002 that a political solution was found despite the Supreme Court ruling that no state can have sea water territory. The political solution was used to make Akwa Ibom oil producing state; so in the past, that has always been the way to resolve such matters. I think that would be the most ideal method to also resolve the current challenge.
"We lost Bakassi; we didn't lose any oil well. You get the point and the illogic of that decision is that we gave up Bakassi territory, but we didn't loss one single oil well to Cameroon, how come the loss of territories in Bakassi to Cameroon results in oil wells now migrating to Akwa Ibom," he asked rhetorically
Meanwhile agitations, protests and prayers continue to trail the delisting of the state from the cartel of oil producing states. Last weekend, women led by the wife of the state's deputy governor, Mrs. Glory Effiok Cobham organised a prayer session in Calabar to seek the face of God for the reversal of the oil wells to the state. Addressing the assembly, she called on the Federal Government to see that justice is done.
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