The Ilima Obolo has kicked against alleged plots by Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly to adjust boundaries and redesign the map of the state, in order to make neighbouring Local Government Areas beneficiaries of the 3 percent host communities fund enshrined in the Petroleum Industry Act.

Ilima Obolo, the apex socio-cultural organisation of the Eastern Obolo people in Akwa Ibom State, explained that if the state’s map is redesigned, other local government areas will become beneficiaries of the oil wells and natural resources that are presently found in Eastern Obolo Local Government Area.

President and General Secretary of the group, Mr. Uye-awaji Ikpaikor and Dr. Amah Williams, while briefing newsmen in Uyo, believed that the remapping was a plan to further divide and share Eastern Obolo and their resources.

They recalled that the court had in 2021 ruled on the matter in the favour of the Obolo communities, and wondered why the state government was still keen to redesign the map and grant a neigbouring local government areas like Onna, Ikot Abasi and Mkpat Enin more prominent status.

According to them, the government was still bent on taking the ancestral homes of the people of Eastern Obolo despite the court judgment in the suit number HU/341/2021 in their favour, while regretting that Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly has decided to be a “rubber stamp arm of the state government.”

The group also called on President Buhari, the National Assembly, the National Boundary Commission, Civil Society Groups and the world at large to come to their aid.

“It is instructive to note that the people of Eastern Obolo are fully aware that this desperate moves even in the face of a subsisting court judgment, to alter or adjust the map of Akwa-Ibom State is just for the sole purpose of ceding to Onna, Mkpat Enin and Ikot Abasi the numerous oil wells and natural resources deposit in Eastern Obolo in a bid to making these local government areas beneficiaries of the 3% host communities fund provided for in the Petroleum Industry Act.

“We make bold to say that the redesigned map adversely and significantly affected Eastern Obolo LGA as several villages have been ceded and shared to other Ibibio Local Government Areas such as Ikot Abasi, Mkpat Enin and Onna.

“Despite the clear order of a court of competent jurisdiction, the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly has made itself a rubber stamp in the hands of expansionists and land grabbers with the sole intention of legitimizing the illegitimate and nefarious desires of these expansionists within the government.

“The Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly that is supposed to be concerned with making laws for the development of the whole of Akwa Ibom State is now fanning the embers of tribalism and sectionalism via the instrumentality of legislation.

“That the disrespect to court order by those saddled with the responsibility of making law is a clear invitation to self-help and anarchy by the State House of Assembly as the same is not only illegal, unconstitutional, undemocratic but contemptuous and breach of a valid order of court.

“We hereby call on the leadership of the Akwa Ibom State House Assembly to desist forthwith from this unethical, unprofessional, barbaric, nefarious, divisive, offensive, malicious, contemptuous, illegal, and unconstitutional act, as such is tantamount to the gross violation of their oath of office.

“For the purpose of emphasis, we urge the Akwa Ibom State Assembly to stop forthwith the consideration and passage of the obnoxious Bill in the interest of peace, justice and rule of law.”