As host community stakeholders criticized the government's new mapping order, redrawing the boundary lines, they claimed it was politically motivated and a ploy to cede their oil and gas belt zones to other non-oil producing areas. Tension has increased in some oil-bearing communities in Akwa Ibom State's Eastern Obolo, Mbo, and Ibeno local government Areas.
The law was approved by the House of Assembly last week under the regime tagged: "State Map Established Law 2023," which was sponsored by speaker Aniekan Bassey. The governor is anticipated to sign the bill before his May 29 departure date.
However, the stakeholders in the affected oil community, represented by Obolo Youths Coalition Worldwide (OYCW), protested the decision, claiming that they had not been consulted and that it had been made in flagrant violation of the relevant court order.
The coalition's president, Comrade Ijonama Mkpon Amon, spoke to journalists in the state capital of Uyo.
In his statement, he explained that: “While all the Christians around the world were mourning the death of Christ including Obolo people, we were shocked and dismayed, that it has come to our notice that the Akwa Ibom State Government, through the State’s House of Assembly in blatant contempt of the valid and subsisting order of a court of competent jurisdiction, has resumed, and is hurriedly ramping up its charade of attempting to redraw and remap the boundaries of Eastern Obolo, Ibeno and Mbo Local Government Areas of the State. These Local Government Areas are indigenous to the Obolo people.
“Let it be on the note that, we the Obolo people have never at any time, requested for any such boundary alteration or remapping of our affected Local Government Areas as required by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and as such illegality is illegality.
“The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provides for at least 2/3 majority of the members of a Local Government Area that seeks or is affected by a request for boundary adjustment to commence and validate any application for the alteration of the mutual boundaries of the local government areas affected.
“This is a sinister call to anarchy and the Akwa Ibom State and its agents are hereby called upon by the Obolo people to sheathe this move as it spells foreseeable resistance and indefinite chaos.”
