By Okoi Obono-Obla
My attention has been drawn to comments credited to the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio, that Cross River State is landlocked and that the Cross River empties into the Calabar River at Itu in Akwa Ibom State.
The facts show otherwise.
1. The River Bears Our Name: Oyono
The Cross River is not a foreign river that passes by us. Its native, indigenous name is Oyono.
Geographic records list it as: Cross River (native name: Oyono) is the main river in southeastern Nigeria and gives its name to Cross River State.
Oyono is an Ejagham name, rooted in Etung, Ikom, Akamkpa and Calabar – all in Cross River State. You do not name a state after a river that does not belong to it. You do not bear a name that is foreign to your soil. The river was Oyono long before it was labelled Cross River by colonial cartographers.
2. Where Does Oyono Empty?
Oyono does not end at Itu. Itu Bridge is merely a crossing built in 1975.
The river flows from the Cameroonian Highlands, enters Nigeria at Etung, and flows through Etung, Ikom, Obubra, Yakurr, Abi, Biase, Akampa, Itu, Odukpani and Mbo Local Government Areas(Akwa Ibom State).
Its official mouth is the Bight of Biafra, emptying into the Atlantic Ocean through the Gulf of Guinea. Near its mouth, it forms an inland delta near its confluence with the Calabar River, and Calabar seaport sits in the Calabar River about 10 kilometres from its confluence with the Cross River and about 55 kilometres from the sea. The joint estuary is 24 kilometres wide at the Atlantic.
3. Why Its Headquarters is in Calabar
If Oyono ended in Akwa Ibom, its Basin Authority would be in Akwa Ibom.
It is not. It is in Cross River State.
CROSS RIVER BASIN DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY, MURTALA MOHAMMED HIGHWAY, P.M.B. 1249, BASIN TOWN, CALABAR, CROSS RIVER STATE.
Basin Town, Calabar. Because the bulk, the name, the history and the mouth of Oyono are in Cross River State.
4. Law vs Geography
What the Senate President referenced is a legal consequence of the ICJ judgment of 2002 and Supreme Court case of 2012 that stripped Cross River of derivation benefits. That was a judicial declaration for revenue sharing, not a geographic relocation of Oyono or the Atlantic Ocean.
Conclusion
Cross River State cannot be landlocked when the river that bears its indigenous name Oyono flows through 7 of its LGAs and empties into the Atlantic in its territory.
Oyono is ours. Its name is ours. Its course is ours. Its estuary is ours.
