In Yoruba mythology, Abiku is the tragic spirit-child—born only to die, again and again, returning with cruel persistence to the wombs of grieving mothers. It is a child whose fate is not to live but to haunt, to mock hope with a cycle of futile rebirths. The saga of Cross River’s 76 oil wells—snatched, ceded, sealed by the Supreme Court—is no less an Abiku tale: a gift promised at birth, violently taken, and yet perpetually returning to torment its rightful owner. It is the paradox of possession denied but never forgotten, of heritage stripped yet never truly lost.
The Supreme Court’s 2012 pronouncement that Cross River is no longer a littoral state—thus unqualified to own offshore oil wells—is the juridical death from which this Abiku refuses to rest. For while the ruling may wear the ceremonial garb of finality, the reality on ground howls in contradiction. The Eastern Naval Command is headquartered in Calabar, a coastal sentinel conducting maritime operations for Nigeria’s eastern seaboard. The Nigerian Ports Authority operates from Cross River’s harbours. And only recently, the Federal Government revived its commitment to the Bakassi Deep Seaport—an ocean-bound project poised to redefine Nigeria’s maritime trade. How then, in the face of such elemental facts, can any sane tribunal of law pronounce Cross River “landlocked”? It is a legal fiction so warped it would make even the Abiku weep.
This is the heart of the paradox: a state dismissed as maritime-null continues to act—and be treated—as a maritime player. Its estuary remains, its seafarers remain, its economic blueprint remains defiantly anchored to the sea. Yet its constitutional identity has been warped by a judgment so blind, so cartographically dishonest, that it stares geography in the face and calls it a lie. One wonders: if the Supreme Court could so thoroughly disinherit a coastal state by judicial fiat, what next? Shall we awaken tomorrow to find that the state governor, Senator Bassey Edet Otu has been declared a woman by judgment in rem—and we must all nod, in robe-bound obedience?
The institutions complicit in this grand larceny and distortion, most notably the National Boundary Commission and RMAFC—must not escape indictment. They did not just err; they conspired with silence, failed in diligence, and became accomplices to a heist wrapped in bureaucracy. These bodies, whose sacred duty it was to draw truth on maps and distribute justice in figures, instead opted for expedience. They gifted Akwa Ibom a windfall birthed not by nature or merit, but by the bleeding misfortune of a neighbor forced to relinquish Bakassi under international mandate.
Akwa Ibom’s gloating response, as recently aired on national television, would have one believe that justice has been served, that the Supreme Court’s ruling is unassailable, and that any further conversation is a nuisance. Elder Aniekan Umanah, the state’s Commissioner for Information, insisted the matter is “sealed,” “settled,” and “not even up for discussion.” But what is this, if not the arrogance of the beneficiary at a rigged auction? What is this “finality” that closes the door to truth, that slams shut the window on political solution? Justice, it seems, is only just when it favours them.
Let it be said plainly: no ruling, however binding, is immune to moral interrogation. History is replete with court decisions later denounced as miscarriages—Plessy v. Ferguson, Dred Scott, even Nigeria’s own internal legal missteps. A sealed judgment is not a sacred one. And where law enshrines injustice, silence becomes complicity.
And so Cross River’s oil wells live on—not in possession, but in painful recollection. They are the Abiku children of a mother betrayed: lost once by diplomacy, again by the gavel, and ever since by the silence of a nation too timid to confront the absurdity enshrined in its jurisprudence. Let Akwa Ibom boast. Let it dress its triumphs in the language of legality. But let no one call this justice. It is a theft sanctified. A judgment embalmed. A truth buried, but not dead. Like the Abiku, it will return.
Obogo is Chief Press Secretary and Special Adviser to Governor Bassey Edet Otu on Media and Publicity.
