By Iboro Otongaran
Since 2021, Okoiyak (also known as Stubbs Creek Forest) has been a metaphor for leadership failure.
Okoiyak is a swathe of land that is home to 10 villages in Akwa Ibom South Senatorial District.
The ownership of the space has been contested by Ibeno and Eket people since antiquity.
The contest went as far as the Privy Council in England where a ruling was delivered in 1918.
But the court judgment didn’t bring the contestations to an end.
In my judgement, the contest was a family matter, a squabble between brothers, until 2021.
This was the year the significance of the contest over Okoiyak assumed a state-wide, and even a national dimension.
In the year in question, 2021, the BUA Group, a privàte Nigerian conglomerate with upmarket footprints in infrastructure, mining, foods, and manufacturing, approached the government of Akwa Ibom State with a proposal to build a 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) capacity refinery and petrochemical plant in the state to harness the abundant deposits of oil and gas for which Akwa Ibom is the bellwether of the country.
BUA might have been incentivised by the promise of the Ease of Doing Business policy the federal government instituted in 2017 to drive up real sector investment in the country.
Or maybe the group was simply carrying on with its eternal rivalry with Dangote Group.
Whatever motivated them, the point is that they identified an opportunity in Akwa Ibom State and opened discussions with the state government about a big-ticket project that would see BUA build 200,000 bpd refinery and petrochemical plant in the state.
Perhaps nothing held a brighter prospect for altering the economic fortune of the state for good.
Okoiyak was identified as a location for the planned refinery. Negotiations were held with community leaders, compensation agreed and money released by BUA to the state government.
That is where the progress story on the refinery project stopped. BUA was not allowed to build access road to the proposed site, or start construction work on the project because of rival ownership claims by Ibeno, Eket and Esit Eket over Okoiyak, the proposed site of the refinery.
The plan of getting the refinery up and running by 2024 turned into a pipedream.
This lamentable turn of event was, in my judgment, a fallout of lack of imagination and the will to act.
But in 2026, a glimmer of hope flickered. The State governor, Pastor Umo Eno, dropped what I would for now call a hint that government is ready to find a solution to the quarrel that has stopped the refinery from coming to pass.
In a government press release of January 6, 2026, the state government spoke clearly on the legal status of Okoiyak.
The release stated that Okoiyak was taken over by the colonial administration under the Forest Reserve Order No. 45 that was amended many times up to 1962, and that by the Nigerian Constitution of 1999 as amended, which recognises the Land Use Act, control over all land in the state is vested in the Governor to be administered for the common good.
This reminder about the status of Okoiyak, and government’s decision to enforce that status, which many people had talked about in the past, ousts all contrary and baseless claims to the land.
This is a leadership masterstroke by Governor Umo Eno. The governor has demonstrated a sense of history, foresight, and critical thinking.
This is what ought to have been done since 2021, but cluelessness or something worse would not let the governor’s predecessor to do what was required of him by his official responsibility.
Okoiyak, everything going to plan —meaning government keeping to this decisive first step —would now become a symbol of hope, a beacon to where Akwa Ibom ought to be headed.
I would like Umo Eno to replicate the Dangote Refinery story with the BUA project at Okoiyak with regard to the leadership essence.
Two different understandings of leadership define the Dangote Refinery legend.
In 2013, the Dangote Group approached the government of Ogun State under the leadership of then Governor Ibikunle Amosun for approval to build the now history-making 650,000 bpd petroleum refinery and petrochemical plant in the state.
The Ogun State government reportedly failed to show enthusiasm for the project idea and instead allowed so many obstacles to undermine its implementation, thereby making the project promoter to look elsewhere.
Insufferably frustrated in Ogun State, the President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, moved next door, by going over to Babatunde Fashola, governor of Lagos State at the time.
What Fashola did defined transformational leadership. He embraced the Dangote Group with the warmth of a true brother, and went over to arrange a meeting with all and sundry in the community in Ibeju Lekki where the refinery was to be located.
The purpose of the meeting was to engineer a buy-in from the host community for the incoming project.
Speaking in Yoruba, Fashola explained what the project was all about, sought and obtained acceptance of the people for Dangote to build the refinery.
He told them whatever problem they had with the project, they should never disturb its execution, but should rather take such issues to him at Alausa, which is the seat of government in Lagos State.
It took only a few weeks of meetings and consultations once Dangote crossed over to Lagos in 2014 for the Group to seal a deal with the Lagos State Government.
Today, Lagos State is home to the Dangote Refinery, a single train mammoth 650,000 bpd manufacturing beehive with a labour force of over 30,000, in addition to many more indirect jobs that are springing forth through service stations and their associated value chain.
The success of the Dangote Refinery is a rebuke to naysayers masquerading as leaders.
For the BUA Refinery not to be a dream deferred, I recommend the Fashola playbook to Governor Umo Eno. The governor should engage communities contiguous to the site of the proposed refinery, and stay engaged, the way Fashola was, until the refinery is delivered.
Using the law to address the contention over Okoiyak is clearly necessary, but not sufficient. Working with all stakeholders to manage and assuage emotions as well as historical proclivities would bring in the factor that makes the government intervention sufficient.
If the BUA Refinery fails to materialise, the story would not be just the failure of an effort to see through a high-value investment project, the real story would be the failure of leadership in a state of 7.9 million (stat by Umo Eno) to manage opportunities and help reposition the state for the good of our children.
Otongaran, a commentator on public affairs, lives in Abuja.