A Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday ordered the transfer of the disputed Soku oil field from Bayelsa State to its rightful owner, Rivers State. The oil wells were ceded to Bayelsa state at the twilight of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.
Delivering judgment in a suit instituted by Rivers State, Justice InyangEkwo, ordered the National Boundary Commission to rectify the error in its 11th edition of Administrative Map, which designated San Bartholomew River as the boundary between the two states, instead of River Santa Barbara.
The error was said to have surfaced in the 11th edition of Administrative Map produced by the NBC in 2002.
The NBC was said to have in its letter dated July 3, 2002, in response to Rivers State Government’s protest admitted its mistake and promised to rectify it in the 12th edition of the administrative map.
Failure of the NBC to rectify the mistake as promised made the Rivers State Government to file a suit against the Attorney-General of BayelsaState and the Attorney-General of the Federation before the Supreme Court in 2009.
The Supreme Court in 2012 ruled in favour of Rivers State and ordered the rectification of the error.
By August 2019, when the mistake had yet to be corrected, Rivers State Government instituted a suit before the Federal High Court in Abuja solely against the NBC, seeking an order of mandamus compelling it to correct its error.
Granting the plaintiff’s prayers in his judgment delivered on Monday, Justice Ekwo ordered the commission to immediately produce the 12th edition of the Administrative Map restoring River Santa Barbara as the inter-state boundary between Rivers and the Bayelsa States, as it was in 1996 when Bayelsa State was carved from Rivers State.
He added that the commission was duty-bound to obey the July 10, 2012 judgment of the Supreme Court which had affirmed River Santa Barbara as the boundary between the states, by immediately correcting its self-admitted error of designating River San Bartholomew as the boundary.
He also ordered that the judgment be served on the relevant statutory bodies, especially, the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission and the office of the Accountant-General of the Federation for them to immediate recompute the amount of oil revenue accruable to it with the transfer of the Soku oil field to it.
It would be recalled that the Soku oil field is located within the OML 23, and it is the only producing field with substantial reserves of gas and liquids and is a key supplier to NLNG.
The field is located in expansive swampland, just about 24 miles from Port Harcourt, and is only accessible by water or air (helicopter).
The Soku gas processing plant is a vital feeder plant for Nigeria LiquifyNatural Gas.
The ownership of the field, located between Bayelsa and Rivers, which used to be one state (Rivers) before October 1, 1996 when Bayelsa was created, has been raging for years.
