A Pan-Ibibio Union in Akwa Ibom State, the on Ibibio Front, has warned that any attempt by the Ijaw settlers in the coastal borders to try to expand beyond the land granted or donated to them by the forebears will be met with stiff measures and the impact will be disastrous for the aggressors.
The warning by the group came on the heels of a televised press conference credited to the Ijaw Youth Council, issued on 24/12/2024, which went viral on social media and the text thereof reported in several national and local tabloids.
The warning by the Pan-Ibibio Union, which was contained in a statement signed by the group’s spokesperson, Akparawa Nelson Utip, and made available to the Tribune on Thursday, specifically called out the Ijaw settlers of Ibeno and Eastern Obolo to be cautious of their actions as they own no land in Akwa Ibom State, except those apportioned to them by the Ibibio forebears in the 18th century.
“In the press conference, the hoodlums threatened to invade Akwa Ibom State should the Ibibio ancestral landowners on the coastline assert their right of ownership in their ancestral lands.
“The press conference also claimed, most annoyingly and provocatively, that Ijaw is the owner of the entire Akwa Ibom State oil-rich shoreline of about 100 kilometres. The said press conference also cowardly seeks to bar Akwa Ibom people from peaceful protest in Akwa Ibom State in pursuit of their inalienable right to their land.
“We are aware of the Ijaw expansionist move in Akwa Ibom State and how they secretly met with Ekid (Eket) leaders in 2004 begging that these coastal Ibibios should accept Ijaw identity in furtherance of their push for the creation of Oil Rivers State for the Ijaws on the oil-rich Niger Delta coastline, including Akwa Ibom coastline, but the Ekets rejected the idea. Having not succeeded in making Ijaw out of Eket in furtherance of the expansionist agenda, they now plan an attack.
“We are aware of the proposal for the creation of Obolo State dated 7th September 2020, which is before the Senate. Provocatively, the map of the proposed state covers the entire Ibibio coastline in Akwa Ibom State. More annoyingly, the proposal has allegedly been sponsored by a highly placed personality in Akwa Ibom State; the effrontery and temerity of the present aggression originate from that proposal.
“We are aware that Ibeno and Eastern Obolo settlers in Ibibioland, who were driven out of their ancestral land in the 18th century, are not interested in the Akwa Ibom project but have always wanted to rejoin their kinsmen outside Akwa Ibom State in an independent state.
“To achieve this, they form Satanic alliances, changing their ethnicity at random depending on their ulterior needs. And since they have no geographical contiguity with their kindred within and outside Akwa Ibom State, they devise dubious means, including fits of violence, to annex Ibibioland by force of arms to attain such contiguity.
“We are aware that there are serious clandestine moves by Ibeno settlers in Ibibioland, in cahoots with external elements, to annex the oil-rich Akwa Ibom coastal land to some other tribes outside Akwa Ibom State with the intent to, in the future, have a coastal state, thus relegating Akwa Ibom State into the hinterland as a landlocked, non-littoral, non-oil-producing, and non-economically viable state,” the statement reads in parts.
It states that there is no indigenous Ijaw community in Akwa Ibom State, apart from the peaceful residents who are in the state for commercial enterprises.
“From the Ikot Abasi River in the west to the Cross River in the east, covering the coasts of Ikot Abasi, Mkpat Enin, ONNA, Eastern Obolo, Ibeno, Eket, and Esit Eket Local Government Areas, is the coastline of the Ibibioland. At the risk of overemphasis, Eastern Obolo and Ibeno are refugee settler communities who, through our forebears’ benevolence, were granted fishing settlements to settle on the coast, for which they paid land rent to their Ibibio landlords up to the 1940s.
“The Ibibio Front wishes to warn that should these ungrateful settlers be so unwise as to invite mercenaries outside Akwa Ibom State to invade any part of Akwa Ibom State or drop any Ibibio blood in their expansionist drive, they will cease to exist on the map of the world. And this is not a threat but a resolution.
“The Ibibio Front wishes to dare, and we hereby dare the Ijaw Youth Council or whatever they call themselves, if they are man enough, not to hide in an unknown destination to boast or issue threats, but to walk the talk by crossing the boundary into Akwa Ibom State on the invitation of Ibeno or any other settler, in pursuit of any mercenary duty in Akwa Ibom State, and we shall demystify them.
In response to what it described as an insulting threat to Eket and other coastal Ibibio people never again to conduct peaceful protest in their own ancestral land to press forward their inalienable rights, the statement called on coastal Ibibios to call for a peaceful protest and total blockade of the Eket-Ibeno road, promising to mobilise the entire Ibibio nation to join the protest.
