The Inter-Agency Technical Committee (IATC) set up by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) verified that Cross River State has 119 crude oil and gas wells and that the state therefore deserves a 13 per cent derivation revenue from those wells.

 

The committee recommended a refund from Akwa Ibom State to Cross River for the money (13 per cent derivation revenue) that Akwa Ibom had been receiving from the 119 wells.

 

“The 119 crude oil and gas wells attributed to Cross River State prior to the exercise were benefited by Akwa Ibom State, as such Akwa Ibom State should refund to Cross River State the 13% enjoyed from the 119 oil and gas wells in form of arrears,” the committee stated.

 

These and other related findings are detailed in the IATC report submitted to the RMAFC in February 2026 for review and subsequent transmission to President Bola Tinubu for consideration.

 

Apparently strengthened by the IATC report, which has refuted the long-held belief that Cross River lost its littoral status after Nigeria ceded the Bakassi Peninsula to Cameroon on 14 August 2008, Governor Bassey Otu of Cross River has been calling for a restoration of Cross River’s economic rights.

 

Mr Otu, in February this year in Calabar, told a group of journalists that Cross River accepted to “sacrifice” Bakassi and its oil and gas assets for Nigeria to achieve peace, but that his state and the people have continued to suffer immensely for it.

 

“Today, we bear the scars, which we believe it is time to change it,” Mr Otu said. “To say the least, we are not even asking for more; we are just asking for our own rights. It is Cross River State today; it can be any other state tomorrow.”

 

PREMIUM TIMES learnt that some powerful figures within the Nigerian government have been fighting hard to suppress the IATC report to prevent Cross River from regaining the oil and gas wells.

 

However, Mohammed Shehu, chairman of RMAFC, said in a February statement that what the commission received from the IATC was a “draft copy” and that media reports suggesting a proposal to transfer oil wells to Cross River were misleading and premature.

 

“Consistent with established protocol, the draft document has been transmitted to relevant technical and statutory stakeholders, namely the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), the National Boundary Commission (NBC), and the Office of the Surveyor General of the Federation (OSGoF), for detailed review, observations, and technical input,” Mr Shehu said.

 

He said a final report would be transmitted to President Tinubu after RMAFC’s tripartite committees had scrutinised the observations and recommendations.

 

Two sources close to the presidency have informed PREMIUM TIMES that the governors of Cross River and Akwa Ibom have already held two meetings on resolving the oil well dispute, on President Tinubu’s directive. The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, reportedly mediated in one of the meetings. The two states have gone further to set up a technical committee, which has been meeting on the matter, one of the sources added.

 

President Tinubu is said to be disposed to resolving the dispute between the two states mutually, without going through a prolonged bureaucratic or legal process.

 

Cross River has lost trillions of naira, and its economy has been negatively impacted, amid several stalled infrastructure projects and reported job losses since it lost the disputed oil wells to Akwa Ibom.

 

IATC members, mandates, methodology

 

Khadija Kumo, the director of the Crude Oil Department at RMAFC, chaired the 13-member IATC, inaugurated on 18 June 2025. The IATC was set up mainly to verify the coordinates of disputed oil and gas fields and wells, and of newly drilled oil and gas wells in Nigeria’s Niger Delta region from 2017 to December 2025.

 

The report explained the methodology deployed by the IATC. The exercise took place in two separate phases. The first phase involved verification of coordinates submitted by the NUPRC. The second phase entailed the plotting of the verified coordinates on established maps.

 

The committee deployed the Tersus Oscar, a new-generation GNSS RTK system, for coordinates verification. Drone technology was also deployed to capture geospatial data. From there, the IATC created a new map of proven oil and gas well locations, both on land and in shallow offshore waters, in each state.

 

Also, the committee looked at the Supreme Court judgement on the oil-well dispute between Cross River and Akwa Ibom, the Supreme Court judgement on the abrogation of the onshore/offshore dichotomy, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling in the case between Cameroon and Nigeria.

 

“Notably, this exercise marked the first time the IATC had undertaken such a field-based assessment in the disputed area since the eastern portion of the Bakassi Peninsula was ceded to the Republic of Cameroon,” the report stated.

 

The report also stated that the coordinates verification exercise was in compliance with the Supreme Court’s judgement in Suit No. SC.250/2009.

 

In that judgement delivered in 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that, “The 13% derivation revenue on the 76 oil wells offshore between Akwa Ibom State and Cross River State must continue to be attributed to the state on whose maritime territory they are found to be located by the relevant government agencies.”

 

The oil-rich Bakassi Peninsula, before it was ceded to Cameroon in 2008, was part of Cross River and is divided into two parts: the eastern and western. The eastern part of Bakassi was ceded to Cameroon, while the western part remains in Nigeria, and in Cross River, with 49 communities.

 

The 76 oil wells are located in the western part of Bakassi, in Cross River, according to IATC findings. Persons knowledgeable about the matter alleged that the Supreme Court judgements that favoured Akwa Ibom regarding the 76 oil wells were based on flawed documents and maps.

 

Michael Aondokaa, a former attorney-general of the federation, told Channels TV in February that Nigeria as a country would have been removed from the maritime map showing the country’s boundary with Cameroon if Cross River were removed, puncturing one of Akwa Ibom’s primary arguments that Cross River does not have direct access to the sea.

 

“In the map that was submitted to the National Assembly at that time, in 2008, it was clear that there was access to the sea through the Calabar Estuaries,” Mr Aondokaa argued.

 

The former attorney-general said there are instances in which the Supreme Court reverses itself if it is glaring that there was a miscarriage of justice and that a judgement was obtained through misrepresentation. Moreover, he said the Supreme Court judgement is tied to the 76 oil wells, and not the new ones discovered by the IATC, leaving room for President Tinubu to resolve the matter through a political solution.

 

Governor Otu dismissed Akwa Ibom’s argument that Cross River lacks direct access to the sea. “Where you went to today is the only navigational channel into Nigeria, and it is in Cross River,” he said to journalists who had visited the coastal areas.

 

On the Supreme Court judgement, the governor reiterated Cross River’s position that the facts presented to the judges were “fraudulent”. “Coordinates don’t lie,” he said.

 

“We have over 300 oil wells in Cross River. Take off anything that is controversial, take off the 76 oil wells. Give us what is ours. We have suffered enough, we can’t take it anymore.”

 

One of the journalists asked Mr Otu what his predecessors did about the 76 oil well dispute and why it took Cross River over 20 years to speak up. “It has been the policy of this administration to draw a line. I don’t know the challenges they faced at the time. I am a comrade. I have toughness and resilience,” the governor responded.

 

For Akwa Ibom, the argument remains the same – that the oil wells belong to them, and the Supreme Court, being the final court of arbitration in Nigeria, has said so.

 

“There are two Supreme Court judgements that give Akwa Ibom State the right to those oil wells. We are not sharing maritime boundaries with Cross River State but with the Republic of Cameroon, and the Nigerian Supreme Court has said so twice to establish this fact,” Governor Eno said in February.

 

“There is no cause for alarm. The people on the other side may cook up any story they want; raise propaganda, but this propaganda has no effect in the face of the two Supreme Court decisions establishing our ownership of the oil wells. This is not about sentiments,” the governor added.