…The Ekid people will fight for their inheritance
By Prof Desmond Wilson
A liar’s punishment is not in the lie told, but in nobody believing them when they speak the truth’.
Discussing politics is a favourite rendezvous for me in our world of missteps, lies and grave human rights violations. In the past few weeks there has been a barrage of lies, half-truths and government threats against one of the foremost oil-producing communities in Akwa Ibom namely, Eket and Esit Eket communities.
For whatever reason, the Governor of Akwa Ibom, Pastor Umo Bassey Eno has spearheaded this onslaught against the people of the community he has lived in for over 35 years. The issue has been that of the ownership of the Stubbs Creek Forest Reserve. This now abused piece of God’s earth is well known by the governor to be the exclusive property of the Ekid people.
The Ibuno (now spelt Ibeno) a late arrival in the area after a fatal dispute over trading control with King Jaja of Opobo in the late 19th century fled in their canoes from Bonny, eastwards to Ikot Abasi, Mkpat Enin, Onna and Eket where they were granted asylum.
Since the fleeing Ibuno groups came in different droves, they were allowed to settle in three villages including Iwuochang and Okoroutip. But they soon began to quarrel among themselves, and this led to the famous suit between Big Town and Upenekang, which an Ekid chief, Abong Edoho-eket was joined. The Ibuno groups were fighting for the control of the area. Chief Edoho-eket informed the court that the two disputants were settlers and eventually judgment was given in his favour as representive of the landlords, the Ekid people, Ibuno appealed the judgment through the Supreme Court, West African Court of Appeal, up to the Privy Council in London. This was the highest court for the colonies at the time.
In 1918 the Privy Council declared the Ibuno as strangers who had no title to the land they were claiming and were ordered to pay damages to the Ekid people. There is no evidence to show they paid the amount that was ordered. But the Ekid people were so lenient to their tenants that they made no further claims and allowed them to stay on.
These facts are well known to the rulers in the state from 1967 when we were part of the erstwhile South-Eastern State. The present Attorney General of the state, Mr Mfon Udom once defended Exxon-Mobil in the 1990s in a suit the Ibuno brought to demand for royalty when the earlier agreement with Eket expired. Ibuno had sought to be paid instead of Eket. The arguments he marshaled then against the Ibuno are the same arguments Ekid people have used to inform our Ibuno brothers to be forthright. It is surprising that now that he is serving government, he has turned around to twist the arguments against the Ekid and in favour of Ibuno. If he now thinks he was lying then let him come out to confess.
Jonathan Swift the Irish writer has advised us, “You should never be ashamed to admit you have been wrong. It only proves you are wiser today than yesterday”. Honourable Attorney General, is this the case? The great Cambodian leader, Prince Norodom Sihanouk has also advised us to note that, ‘Time will inevitably discover dishonesty and lies, history has no place for them’.
Unfortunately, we often discover too late that a ‘a liar’s punishment is not in the lie he told, but in nobody believing them when they speak the truth’. So when governments speaks and acts in a manner that seeks to obliterate the truth, it should remember that a lie has an expiry date. ‘The truth,’ as one anonymous commentator puts it, ‘is still the truth even if no one believes it. A lie is still a lie, even if everyone believes it’.
Government cannot threaten the people over their property and then say that someone came to the world with no land, and would not depart with any, as if the proclaimer will leave for ever. The Ekid people will fight for their inheritance. The people who have tried to disinherit them for more than 108 years will not inherit this land because the courts had decided the matter about108 years ago. We cannot tell the owner to abandon his rights because we have special interests in claiming part of the benefits if their rogue interpretation of the law in favour of a rogue claimant is forcibly implemented. And as Rachel Hawthorne has averred, ‘Deception may give us what we want for the present but it will always take it away in the end’.
In one breath, the Government recognises the Ibuno as landlords and encourages BUA and other investor interests to pay compensation to them and yet the Attorney General claims the land belongs to no group. The AKS Government is today enjoying the status of the largest oil-producing state because of the littoral/coastal local government areas. The insincerity shines through like the full moon glowing through the darkest night. The government may use our resources to bribe ignorant youths and political wheeler dealers who will assure them of their loyalty to them, but they should be rest assured that those political traders do not represent us.
If the land did not belong to the Ekid people why was Exxon-Mobil made to pay to Ekid people for the ‘dereserved’ part of the Stubbs Creek to expand its activities? Another important question that the state must answer is, why are they parceling out portions of land to themselves and their friends when they know that this forest reserve created in 1930 is supposed to serve as an environmentally friendly hub which could become part of the World’s heritage sites?
Let the government come out with the truth; how many of the past rulers and serving ones have large hectares of thestubbs Creek Forest Reserve allocated to them? Who collects the money? The so-called Lagos to Calabar Coastal Highway passes through several communities. Don’t they pay compensation in those areas? Is it part of the political alignment that Akwa Ibom people must not get their own share of what is authorized by law? Must we return to the houseboy mentality to convince our oppressors that we are indeed true slaves?
Prof. Wilson. ©️Ekid Collective, January 2026
