The Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday ordered the transfer
of Soku oil field from Bayelsa State to its rightful owner, Rivers
State.
Delivering judgment in a suit instituted by Rivers State,
Justice Inyang Ekwo, ordered the National Boundary Commission to
rectify the error in its 11th edition of Administrative Map, which
designated San Bartholomew River as the boundary between the two
states, instead of River Santa Barbara.
The error was said to have surfaced in the 11th edition of
Administrative Map produced by the NBC in 2002.
The NBC was said to have in its letter dated July 3, 2002 in
response to Rivers State Government’s protest admitted its mistake
and promised to rectify it in the 12th edition of the
administrative map.
Failure of the NBC to rectify the mistake as promised made the
Rivers State Government to file a suit against the Attorney-General
of Bayelsa State and the Attorney-General of the Federation before
the Supreme Court in 2009.
The Supreme Court in 2012 ruled in favour of Rivers State and
ordered the rectification of the error.
By August 2019, when the mistake had yet to be corrected, Rivers
State Government instituted a suit before the Federal High Court in
Abuja solely against the NBC, seeking an order of mandamus
compelling it to correct its error.
Granting the plaintiff’s prayers in his judgment delivered on
Monday, Justice Ekwo ordered the commission to immediately produce
the 12th edition of the Administrative Map restoring River Santa
Barbara as the inter-state boundary between Rivers and Bayelsa
States, as it was in 1996 when Bayelsa State was carved from Rivers
State.
He added that the commission was duty-bound to obey the July 10,
2012 judgment of the Supreme Court which had affirmed River Santa
Barbara as the boundary between the states, by immediately
correcting its self-admitted error of designating River San
Bartholomew as the boundary.
He also ordered that the judgment be served on the relevant
statutory bodies, especially, the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation
and Fiscal Commission and the office of the Accountant-General of
the Federation for them to immediate recompute the amount of oil
revenue accruable to it with the transfer of the Soku oil field to
it.
More details later…
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