The state Chairman of Land Use and Allocation Committee, Peter Esuh, has bemoaned the exclusion of Tom Shot Island, fishing settlements and other villages by what he calls ‘distorted’ 2003 official map of Akwa Ibom State.
Esuh, Dean, Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, University of Uyo, specifically blamed loss of Bakassi Peninsula to Cross River State and subsequently to Cameroon on the redrawn map for excising it out of the state.
The Professor recalled that the state map was okay until the government re-designed it in 2003 that left Bakassi at the mercy of the late General Sani Abacha, then Nigeria’s Head of State.
According to him, Abacha had no other option but to cede the island mainly populated by Akwa Ibom people to Cross River after the government during the era of Yakubu Bako, then Lieutenant Colonel and Akwa Ibom military administrator, had spent more than N400 million in providing infrastructural facilities in the peninsula.
Bakassi was later excised to Cameroon by the International Court at Hague during the era of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Speaking in an interview with Straightnews in Uyo on Wednesday, Esuh also alleged that the map does not capture Tom Shot in Mbo and other fishing settlements in the area, which rightly belong to Akwa Ibom.
He further submitted that the map has excluded a few villages in Oruk Anam and Ukanafun though also inhabited by a few Igbos and Ogonis and added them to Abia State while it added some villages in Itu Local Government Area to Odukpani in Cross River State.
The Land Use boss noted that Akwa Ibom government should have redesigned the map based on inputs of the map drawn by the British colonial masters but archived by the defunct Eastern Region government at Enugu Library.
When Straightnews asked on the actual map, he responded, ‘‘I am referring to the official map of Akwa Ibom State. That map is not a complete one. The way we designed our map had been the reason we had issues with Cross River State and Rivers State. Remember that it took the grace of God and the cooperation of Justices of the Supreme Court for us to retrieve 96 oil wells which belong to the Oro waterways, even though the State Government has refused to recognize the five local government areas in Oron as oil producing.
‘‘I have always asked them: those oil wells retrieved from Cross River, where are they? Those basic things so we don’t do politics with everything. That map does not necessarily capture Tom Shot island.’’ he stated.
Esuh recalled ‘‘This map was designed about 2003 during the Obong Victor Attah administration. It has not captured some areas in Mbo Local Government Area we usually refer to as ‘Utan-’ those fishing territories on the sea that belong to Akwa Ibom. As I said earlier if you look at the map of Africa you will see places like Madagascar, they are captured.
‘‘Why don’t we capture our own? Then, there had been contentions with some local government and communities that they have been excised by the wrong configuration of the map. For instance, the new map of Akwa Ibom, as it was redrawn, excludes Mbo that we know from the sea birth of the Atlantic from the right-hand side.’’
On the way out, he opined ‘‘We should go back to the old map of Cross River. You need to go back to even the colonial map of Eastern Nigeria. You will see these boundaries and the old map of Cross River before we became Akwa Ibom. You will see critical junctures of our communities and how they are bounded to the rivers or to the base.’’
He reasoned ‘‘But, if we had done our map appropriately, we won’t be contending with Cross River at Okpokong. You know there had been contentions until they got to National Boundary Commission. We would have been emphatic on the old map that captured places like Mbiabo in Itu LGA which is at the other side of the river which perhaps now Cross River State can take.
‘‘We need to look at the current map, look at the previous, old map, the colonial map. Look at when we were in South Eastern State, in Cross River State. We only came out in 1987 and had a map drawn 2003 that has not captured the essence of what was the original mainland people of Cross River State.’’
