The Ekid-speaking people of Akwa Ibom State have again asked Governor Umo Eno to implement court rulings affirming their ownership of the Stubbs Creek Forest rather than raise a new committee to adjudicate on the matter with their Ibeno neighbours.
The community’s position is contained in a communiqué issued at the end of their consultative meeting held at Atan and at the Palace of the Paramount Ruler of Eket, which was made available to journalists yesterday in Abuja.
The communiqué was jointly signed by the Paramount Ruler, Obong E.C.D.Abia, the president-general of Ekid Peoples Union, Dr. Sam Udonsak, the union’s national secretary, Barr. Bassey Dan-Abia and other key stakeholders of Ekid nationality.
They insisted that the courts had since resolved the land matter and that the rulings were unambiguous, so the state government should comply with the verdicts.
At the expanded stakeholders’ meeting, the people rejected the governor’s proposed committee on Stubbs Creek Forest, describing it as unnecessary and suspicious. They requested the immediate implementation of previous court rulings.
The communiqué read in part: “Apart from the suspicious composition, the stakeholders found the committee to be spurious and unnecessary in view of the numerous court judgments spanning over a century, as well as the statutes of the legislature which the government has refused to implement.
“The stakeholders have not found any legitimate basis for setting up a new committee to review the court judgments, including those of the Privy Council in London of 1916–1918. They have not found any explicable reason to review the statutes of the legislature on this matter.
“The stakeholders believe that the proposed committee is an avenue to surreptitiously cover the illegal land deals in the Stubbs Creek and possibly request more concessions of land to the Ibeno people.
“We want to make it abundantly clear that the Ekid people will not make any more concessions to Ibeno in the Stubbs Creek Forest, as we have already conceded so much since their arrival on the Qua Iboe River estuary.”
