Six Coastal local government areas in Akwa Ibom State have rejected their inclusion in the proposed Oil Rivers State.
The local government areas are Eket, Esit Eket, Onna, Mkpat Enin, Ikot Abasi and Nsit Ubium.
The councils stated this position when their chiefs, accompanied by senators, House of Representatives members from the state and other major stakeholders visited the Deputy President of the Senate and Chairman of the Constitution Review Committee of the National Assembly, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, in Abuja.
According to the leader of the delegation, His Royal Majesty, Obong E.C.D. Abia, in an executive brief presented to Ekweremadu: “The people of the affected areas have gone through a memorandum for the creation of ‘Oil Rivers State’ out of the present Rivers State, Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom State submitted to the national assembly dated June 2012 and we hereby declare the document as not representing the wishes of the people who make up the local governments.”
Abia described the document as “misleading and mischievous,” adding that the “agitators and the architects of the said memorandum employed outright falsehood and distortion to advance their demands.”
The monarch stated further: “The area of land and wealth thereon, which the people of Ibeno and Eastern Obolo local governments, who now wish to belong to the proposed Oil Rivers state, have caused to be drawn or made to form part of the proposed Oil Rivers State does not belong to Ibeno or Eastern Obolo.”
To buttress his submission, Abia chronicled past decided judicial cases on the controversial lands, which were in favour of the six coastal local government areas.
Abia also stressed that the “six Coastal Local Government Areas of Akwa Ibom State were not against the Ibenos and Eastern Obolo’s desire to join the proposed Oil River State since they now claim to be Ijaws, but that they should not do so with our land and wealth.”
In his remark, Ekweremadu assured the Akwa Ibom State delegation that the issue of state creation will follow due process, which will be supported by a referendum to avoid the errors of the past, emphasizing that no state will be created unless it is supported by all the local government areas involved while commending the peaceful manner the Akwa Ibom monarchs are approaching the issue.
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