By Linus Obogo
In Yoruba mythology, Abiku is the tragic spirit-child—born only to die, again and again, returning with cruel persistence to the wombs of grieving mothers. It is a child whose fate is not to live but to haunt, to mock hope with a cycle of futile rebirths. The saga of Cross River’s 76 oil wells—snatched, ceded, sealed by the Supreme Court—is no less an Abiku tale: a gift promised at birth, violently taken, and yet perpetually returning to torment its rightful owner. It is the paradox of possession denied but never forgotten, of heritage stripped yet never truly lost.
The Supreme Court’s 2012 pronouncement that Cross River is no longer a littoral state—thus unqualified to own offshore oil wells—is the juridical death from which this Abiku refuses to rest. For while the ruling may wear the ceremonial garb of finality, the reality on ground howls in contradiction. The Eastern Naval Command is headquartered in Calabar, a coastal sentinel conducting maritime operations for Nigeria’s eastern seaboard. The Nigerian Ports Authority operates from Cross River’s harbours. And only recently, the Federal Government revived its commitment to the Bakassi Deep Seaport—an ocean-bound project poised to redefine Nigeria’s maritime trade. How then, in the face of such elemental facts, can any sane tribunal of law pronounce Cross River “landlocked”? It is a legal fiction so warped it would make even the Abiku weep.