Seven states to refund N17.5 billion to Rivers State

Seven states have been ordered by the Federal Government to refund N17.5 billion to Rivers State. The amount, it was learnt, represents the sum the affected states, namely Akwa Ibom, Delta, Bayelsa, Imo, Edo, Abia and Ondo had received as part of their 13 percent derivation revenue from two oil wells, which the Rivers State Government had successfully proved belong to it.

The Federal Government ordered the refund to Rivers State, following a protest by the state that its revenue from the affected oil wells located in respect of Nda and Okwori oil fields with effect from 2007 had been shared to oil producing states by the Federal Government. In response to the directive, Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, RMAFC, wrote the Accountant General of the Federation, Mr. J.O Otunla on January 17, 2012, to effect the reduction of the money from the allocations of the seven states with immediate effect.

Rivers, Bayelsa Oil Dispute: No truce in sight

Despite the intervention by President Goodluck Jonathan to broker a truce between Bayelsa and Rivers States over some disputed oil wells, the war of attrition raged on.

 Amid recent recriminations between the two states, President Jonathan had met with a delegation from Rivers State at the State House, to broker a truce in the simmering disagreement between the two neighbouring states over the ownership of the oil wells.  Although he was initially billed to meet delegations from the two states, the president only met with that of Rivers, led by the governor, Mr. Chibuike Amaechi. No reason was given for the exclusion of the Bayelsa delegation from the meeting.

 According to a source at the meeting, which lasted more than one hour, the president explored means of peacefully reconciling the differences over what some indigenes of Rivers State claimed to be an attempt to excise some oil wells belonging to their communities.

Giving its account of the dispute, Bayelsa said while Soku is a village in Rivers State, the oil wells/oil field and the flow station are located in the Oluasiri clan in Nembe Local Government Area of Bayelsa State. According to it, the name Soku oil wells/oil field was wrongly given by the Shell Petroleum Development Company Ltd (SPDC) because Soku village was their operational base at that time.

The Bayelsa State Government explained that it was wrong for Rivers to now claim River Santa Babara as the boundary between the Kalabari people of Rivers State and the Nembe people of Bayelsa State, when in its White Paper of 1993 on the report of the Justice Peter B. Akere panel it rejected the river as the boundary landmark. It added that the 11th edition of the administrative map of Nigeria has confirmed River San Bartholomew as the boundary between Nembe of Bayelsa State and new Calabar (Kalabari) of Rivers State, which has metamorphosed into the boundary between the two states.