The Cross River State Businessmen’s Forum has replied Senate President Godswill Akpabio over his recent description of Cross River State as landlocked, saying no court has ever removed the state from the Atlantic map.
President of the forum Chief Henry Onwe made the remarks yesterday in Calabar while reacting to Akpabio’s comments regarding the littoral status of Cross River State
Akpabio had during an event to mark the 39th Anniversary of Akwa Ibom State described Cross River as a non-littoral state.
But Onwe, who spoke on behalf of the Forum stated that Akpabio’s claim is “geographically inaccurate.”
“As leaders of the organised private sector, we refuse to accept such claims from the nation’s Senate President who ought to speak based on facts and neutrality,” Onwe said.
Onwe argued that the 2012 Supreme Court judgement which ceded 76 oil wells to Akwa Ibom State only dealt with derivation following the loss of Bakassi to Cameroon and did not redefine the physical geography of Nigeria.
“No court removed Cross River from the Atlantic map. The Cross River Estuary still discharges into the Bight of Bonny in the Atlantic Ocean with islands projecting into international waters,” Onwe maintained.
“To buttress its position, it listed the permanent siting of the Eastern Naval Command in Calabar which cannot be based in a landlocked territory, the re-accreditation of the state as littoral by relevant federal agencies after geopolitical reviews.
He stated that the ongoing GPS mapping by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has not said that Cross River has lost it littoral status.
The Forum president stated that scientific work for the Bakassi Deep Seaport has also identified oil wellheads within the state’s coastal boundaries.
The forum president declared support for Governor Bassey Otu in the struggle to reclaim the state’s littoral status and called on all stakeholders, including the media, to maintain neutrality and rely on “physical geography as well as certified federal data.”
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