The Supreme Court in Abuja Nigeria’s capital has resolved the ownership dispute of 17 oil wells in favour of Rivers State
In the judgement delivered by Justice Emmanuel Agim on Friday, May 6, 2022 the apex court dismissed the counter claim ownership put forward by Imo State Government.
The oil Wells located in the territories of Rivers and Imo States have been a subject of litigation at the apex court, which served as a court of first instance with seven Justices in the panel.
According to Justice Agim, reliefs 1, 3 4 5 and 6 sought by Rivers State Government were granted by the Court.
The Court however refused to grant reliefs 2, 7 and 10.
Among the reliefs granted by the apex Court in favour of Rivers state are that the boundary between Rivers and Imo as delineated in Nigeria administrative map 10th edition, 11th, 12th edition and other maps bearing similar delineation are inaccurate, incorrect, and do not represent the legitimate and lawful boundaries between Rivers and Imo state.
The Supreme Court agreed with Rivers state that;
“The correct instruments, map and documents to be relied upon in the determination of the boundary between Rivers and Imo states are those used by Rivers in delineating the boundary line between the two states including Decree No. 14 of 1967, Decree No. 12 of 1976, the White papers/conclusion of the Federal Military government on the Irikefe and the Nasir Boundary Commission/Boundary Adjustment Commission, the Eastern Nigeria map, the Provincial map of Owerri province, Warri Province, Onitsha Province, Rivers Province, the Ahoada District map and Aboh Division map.”
The Judge however refused to grant the N500 million cost requested by Rivers State.
The Supreme Court also refused to order the Nigeria’s Attorney General, Abubakar Malami to calculate and refund to Rivers State all revenue that have been wrongly denied the state and wrongly paid to Imo state on account of the extent of the distributable revenue derived from the Akri and Mbede oil wells.
AGF and Imo state who are the 1st and 2nd defendents respectively in the suit had On February 7 when they adopted their final processes prayed the court to dismiss the suit and order Rivers to file it at the Federal High Court because it is a revenue matter.
Their grounds are that before the suit can be amicably resolved, witnesses, especially residents of the disputed areas needed to be called to give oral evidence on which side they belonged between Imo and Rivers.
The two defendants further demanded that the intervention of the National Boundary Commission would also be required to give evidence at the Federal High Court before an appreciable conclusion can be drawn.
The requests were however turned down by the court.
PIAK
