By Aniekan Umanah
Have facts ever been so stubbornly denied in plain sight? Recent calls from the Cross River Patriotic Front for the “return” of 76 oil wells allegedly “taken” from Cross River State are not just misplaced, they reveal a startling poverty of knowledge and a dangerous confusion between sentiments and the law.
Let us ask plainly: Since when did emotional appeal ever override constitutional authority? When did aspiration become a substitute for binding judicial pronouncement?
The spinned controversy re-emerging around these oil wells is not new. This dispute was exhaustively examined, reviewed, and conclusively settled by Nigeria’s highest court and confirmed by relevant institutions.
Yet, instead of engaging these facts, some “patriots” are riding a wave of sentiment that lacks facts, legal grounding and logical coherence.
First, the 76 oil wells rightly belong to Akwa Ibom State. The law bears out this fact.
Based on established maritime boundaries and internationally accepted hydrographic unchanging coordinates, these oil .wells lie within Akwa Ibom’s littoral territory. Their attribution is not a matter of opinion, it is a matter of geography and settled law.
So, we must ask: Since the wells are not in Cross River’s maritime space and the State is non-littoral, by what miracle of logic can they suddenly belong to Cross River?
Second, oil well allocation is driven by law and location, not sentiment. In both Nigerian constitutional practice and international maritime jurisprudence, oil wells follow lines on a map determined by legally enforceable boundary adjudications, not by rallies or press releases.
Third, the Supreme Court judgement remains supreme and final. Under Section 235 of the 1999 Constitution, the judgment of the Supreme Court cannot be reversed by committee, by rhetoric, or by press releases alone.
The apex court ruled that Cross River State, having lost its littoral status following the ceding of the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroun, no longer qualifies as a coastal state for offshore oil derivation claims. No counter-claim has overthrown this conclusion. 
How, then, can one claim ignorance of the Constitution as if it were optional?
Fourth, the Bakassi cession did not transfer oil wells to Cross River State. The ceding of the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon was implemented via an International Court of Justice judgment of 2002 and subsequent treaty.
That process did not, and legally could not, translate into transferring offshore assets outside the ceded territory to Cross River State.
Does pains over the loss of Bakassi give licence for rewriting legal history?
Fifth, due process was followed in attributing the oil wells to Akwa Ibom.
Federal technical institutions, including the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), National Boundary Commission (NBC), and the Office of the Surveyor-General of the Federation (OSGOF), relied on technical data to determine entitlement.
These are constitutional bodies charged with precisely this function. Can they shift the goal post of static coordinates of geography? Mere assertions can not shift empirical status of coordinates.
Sixth, the Supreme Court judgment is not an interpretive suggestion , it is binding law.
No inter-agency committee, no press statement, not even a patriotic front, may sit in appeal over the Supreme Court. That conclusion is not a political position; it is a constitutional fact. 
Seventh, emotive appeals cannot displace settled legal reality. The loss of Bakassi was deeply felt by many Nigerians and is rightly remembered as a historic moment. But grief does not create rights where none exist. Sympathy does not confer jurisdiction. The law does.
Eighth, we must ask the Patriots plainly: Are you calling for judicial pronouncements to be overridden by emotional pleas? Are you suggesting that opinion should eclipse the highest court in the land? Haba Patriots !
These are not questions of patriotism. They are questions of legitimacy.
Finally, justice is served only by fidelity to facts and fidelity to law. Attempts to divert lawfully allocated derivation revenue or to recast maritime boundaries without judicial backing threaten constitutional and fiscal order, undermine national cohesion, and destroy the Rule or Law .
Akwa Ibom State has always sought only peaceful engagement, and respect for judicial finality. It remains committed to cooperation and unity. But it will defend what is rightfully hers, not with sentiment, not with slogans, but with law and documented fact.
For clarity , the 76 oil wells or any other within the same maritime corridor are not lost assets waiting to be “returned.” They are firmly and finally vested in Akwa Ibom State by the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
No petition, committee, or press statement, no matter how passionately worded, can alter that reality.
Thank you Patriots!
Umanah is the Commissioner for Information, Akwa Ibom State
