Akwa Ibom map is incomplete – Prof. Peter Esuh.

 Akwa Ibom map is incomplete – Prof. Peter Esuh. 

October 13, 2022 Joseph Atinayang

Advocates setting up of committee of experts to review current map

State Surveyor General to address the issue shortly.

The current map of Akwa Ibom State has been described as “incomplete” and “distorted.”

A professor of Corporate and Marketing Communication and Applied Rhetoric, Peter Esuh, asserted this on the sideline of the opening of the Week of the Information Chapel of the Akwa Ibom State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists in Uyo.

Esuh, who is also the Dean, Faculty of Communications and Media Studies, University of Uyo, Uyo, had stirred the curiosity of WatchmanPost, when, during his keynote address at the event, he remarked that the current map of the state was distorted.

The professor, who was speaking on the theme of the Chapel’s Week, ‘Government Information Managers: Impact, Challenges and Prospects in the Completion Agenda’, as the keynote speaker on the occasion, advocated that government information officers should be accorded managerial status to enable them be part of decision making apparati of their organizations.

Speaking more on the state map, to journalists, away from the event, Esuh asserted, “That map [the present one] is not a complete map.”

Explaining his position, he said the map has left out some areas, especially fishing regions that rightly belong to the state.

Among these, he said, is Tom Shot Island, known to Mbo people as Okproñ Nkoyo Ọzọ; some fishing settlements between Oron and Calabar waterways; as well as Igbo-speaking areas of Oruk Anam Local Government Area.

Esuh expressed concerns that the way the state went about drawing its map has provoked avoidable issues” between her and her neighbours.

His words, “You’ll remember that it took the grace of God and the cooperation of the Justices of the Supreme Court for us to retrieve 96 oil wells, which belong to Oron waterways, even though the government of Akwa Ibom State is yet to recognise the five local government areas of Ọrọ as oil-producing.”

He added, “And I have always asked them: those oil wells that were retrieved from Cross River State, where are they? In whose waters are they located? These are basic things, so we don’t do politics with everything. That map does not necessarily capture Tom shot Island.”

As a way out, the communication scholar advocated the setting up of a committee of experts to look into the various maps of the state starting from those drawn during colonial times, to the Eastern Region days, down to the present.

According to him, such a committee was necessary so that all Akwa Ibom spaces not captured in the current map, whether islands or fishing settlements, would be encapsulated.

Esuh voiced the optimism that once that is done, the state would have a map that will stand the test of time.

Responding to WatchmanPost enquiry on the matter, the State Surveyor General, Mrs. Emẹm Isang, declined to talk over the telephone, but agreed to do so next week in a person-to-person engagement