16th December, 2019
Today, Monday 16 December, the dispute over the Soku Oil Fields between Bayelsa and Rivers States was resolved by a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja. It ruled that the fields located in Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State that were ceded to Bayelsa State at the twilight of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration now belong to Rivers.
The disputed area is an ancient repository of oil and gas exploration and exploitation, which, as Anayo Onukwuga put it in Leadership, started since 1958 after Oloibiri. The community is host to three flow stations: Soku, Ekulama I and II, the Oil Ream Development project (ORD), and, according to the report, the over N25 billion Soku Liquefied Natural Gas Plant.
Onukwuga wrote: “The politics of Soku oil wells, which pitched former Rivers State governor, Mr. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, against each other was resurrected recently when Governor Ezebunwo Nyesom Wike declared his readiness to go into dialogue with the federal government with the aim of having the oil wells returned to the state.” Read how the dispute started.