Cross River is nursing significant ambition to recover the 76 oil wells transferred to its sister state, Akwa Ibom by the Nigerian Supreme Court in a landmark judgement in 2012. Nearly 15 years after the judgement, the Cross River government has reopened the matter, with claims that there remain gray areas which the apex court failed to consider before presenting its ruling.
In July last year, the state issued a statement “RE: 76 OIL WELLS, RESTATEMENT OF FACTS” where all the emerging facts regarding the surreptitious allocation of Cross River State 76 Oil Wells to Akwa Ibom State and all related matters thereto were clearly enunciated for public information.
In particular, Cross River State maintained that despite the ICJ judgment, it retained coastal and littoral access to the sea through the Cross River Estuary, and therefore remained entitled to offshore derivation benefits. Akwa Ibom State opposed this position, relying largely on administrative boundary interpretations.
In its 2012 judgment, the Supreme Court ruled that by virtue of the ICJ decision, Cross River State no longer maintained a seaward coastline contiguous to the open sea extending to the 200-metre isobath, and therefore could not claim automatic offshore entitlement based solely on littoral status.
The state said, “However, the Court did not determine ownership of the 76 oil wells, nor did it award them to Akwa Ibom State. The appeal brought by Cross River State was struck out, not dismissed, and the lead judgment concluded clearly: “The Appellant’s reliefs are not granted and the appeal is struck out without cost.”
Cross River said, crucially, the Supreme Court made no order transferring, awarding, or reallocating the 76 oil wells. Instead, the Court expressly stated that the responsibility for oil well attribution lay with the constitutionally designated federal agencies—the National Boundary Commission (NBC), the Office of the Surveyor-General of the Federation (OSGOF), and the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC)—and that the wells should be ascribed to the offshore boundary between Cross River State and Akwa Ibom State where they are physically located, based on proper technical determination.
As a result, the state followed up with a petition to President Bola Tinubu, the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), National Boundary Commission (NBC), Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Resources Commission (NUPRC) and Office of the Surveyor General of the Federation (OSGOF) with evidence of 245 new Oil Wells derivation allocation with a comprehensive scientific, geological and legal evidence justifying its oil producing status.
An Inter-Agency Committee was constituted by the President and exercise conducted in November 2025 confirming additional oil wells derivation allocation for Cross River. The current Inter-Agency Committee opened a public hearing for the presentation of the report having shared the coordinates to both States.
“The result is obvious, Cross River State is an Oil producing State with Oil Wells within its maritime territory beyond, 67 or 76 Oil Wells,” the state government said in a statement signed by Erasmus Ekpang, the commissioner of information.
“As at today, Cross River still maintains that position which necessitated the writing of the petition in the first instance to the President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, over the injustice meted to us as a State.
“We bore the brunt of handing over a part of Bakassi to the Republic of Cameroon all these years. It baffles our imagination how only a portion of Bakassi was ceded to Cameroon while the Oil Wells found their way to Akwa Ibom that was not part of the dispute in the first place, the state government stated.
It commended the President, for instructing the setting up of the federal government inter-agency technical committee to look into the emerging matters.
As it stands, Cross River says, it is confident of regaining its oil wells, saying that “comprehensive visits, mappings and findings made to the area in dispute by all concerned and new discoveries have emerged in the area which was not demarcated, boundaries have been set between the Cross River State estuaries and the Cameroon”.
The government demands that the inter-agency committee should be allowed to present their findings to show the actual location of the oil wells within both states (Cross River and Akwa Ibom). The former further deplores what it described as “divisive plot to disrupt the conclusion of these findings, report and implementation”.
It said it has absolute confidence in the joint committee and urges them to remain resolute in rewriting the wrongs of the past. “What is truly ours will be returned to us. We are hopeful of getting back all our oil wells.
