The Great Obi-Mbieri Oil Heist

One question was asked. It has still not been answered: who did Seplat meet at the palace of Eze Osuji, and in what capacity?

Re: “Setting the Records Straight” — the records are still not straight

A reply to the advertorial published in Star Post Express, Wednesday 19 August 2026, page 10

One question was asked. It has not been answered. 

Today, the records are anything but straight. Instead, they have become even more complicated, confusing and contradictory—raising more questions than they answer.

The report of 12 August 2026 said this: that at the meeting of the Supreme Council of Mbieri, convened at the palace of HRH Eze C.A.C. Eronini on 31 July 2026, a representative of Seplat Energy, Dr. Raymond Eze, told the assembled traditional rulers that the company had engaged HRH Eze (Dr.) Josiah N. Osuji of Obi Mbieri. Reached afterwards by telephone, Dr. Eze confirmed that the company had met someone at Eze Osuji’s palace — but declined to say whether that person was the traditional ruler.

The advertorial of 19 August does not mention Dr. Raymond Eze. It does not mention the meeting of 31 July. It does not mention the telephone call. It answers instead a question nobody asked — whether oil money has been shared — and calls that setting the record straight.

In law, a general traverse does not answer a specific averment. An admission made by a company’s own representative, in the presence of seven traditional rulers, is direct evidence. A stakeholder’s account of how the industry works in general is not evidence at all. Where a party is asked a plain question in circumstances that call for an answer and offers silence instead, an adverse inference becomes available. That inference is now available.

The advertorial's own facts destroy its case

The writer confirms, in his own words, that Eze Osuji is abroad receiving treatment. The first report put that absence at more than six years. The advertorial does not dispute it.

Then let the arithmetic be done in public. If the Eze has been out of the country, and Seplat’s own representative confirms a meeting at the Eze’s palace, then the person Seplat met was not the Eze. The advertorial has corroborated the very allegation it was purchased to rebut. It remains only to be told who that person was.

One community. One oil field. One company. Two different accounts — and both counterparties unnamed.

There are now two accounts on record of how Seplat Energy entered Obi Mbieri, and they are not compatible.

The first came from the company itself. On 31 July 2026, at the palace of HRH Eze C.A.C. Eronini, before the Supreme Council of Mbieri, Seplat’s representative Dr. Raymond Eze told seven traditional rulers that the company had engaged HRH Eze (Dr.) Josiah N. Osuji of Obi Mbieri. That is engagement through a palace — named and attributed. On the telephone afterwards, Dr. Eze confirmed that the meeting had taken place at Eze Osuji’s palace, but would not say who he had met there.

The second came nineteen days later, in purchased space beneath the Seplat mark. It says oil companies deal with recognised town unions, not with palaces. It lists discussions with two town unions on employment, and separately with Ihitte Mbieri and Ubomiri.

Note what this is, and what it is not. This is not the community’s word against the company’s. It is the company’s word against the company’s own advertorial. The account of 19 August does not correct the statement of 31 July, does not withdraw it, and does not mention that it was ever made. A correction that never names what it is correcting is not a correction. A crooked stick is not made straight by the declaration that it is straight — not in Obi Mbieri, and not anywhere else.

Three readings are possible, and each carries a cost.

If the town union account is true, then Seplat’s own representative misstated the company’s position to seven traditional rulers in a formal sitting, and the company has allowed that misstatement to stand for a month without withdrawing it.

If the palace account is true, then the rule the advertorial invokes was breached by the company that invokes it — and breached in a community whose Eze has been abroad receiving treatment for more than six years. Which means the person met at that palace was somebody else. It was not Eze Osuji.

If both are true — palace for land access, union for employment — the position is worse than either, not better. It means two parallel tracks, two sets of counterparties, and no single record of who committed the community to what. That is how a host community ends up with a land agreement it never saw, signed by a man whose authority nobody can produce and whose identity it may never verify.

The writer may choose whichever reading he prefers. Each of the three requires a name, and he has supplied none.

Neither account produced a name.

The palace account will not say who was met. The town union account will not name the President-General, will not name the Secretary, and will not produce the certificate of recognition. A defence built entirely on the authority of the town union does not identify the town union.

This is the whole of the difficulty. Every instrument that matters here — a land access agreement, a compensation schedule, a nomination to the Board of Trustees of the Host Communities Development Trust — requires a person with the capacity to sign it. Neither account has yet produced such a person.

The advertorial names two men in order to disqualify them. It does not name the one office on which its whole argument depends. An argument that omits its own foundation is not a defence. It is a distraction.

A further inconsistency, this time in conduct

The advertorial’s entire defence rests on a single proposition: that oil companies deal with the recognised town union of an autonomous community, and not with palaces.

Accept that proposition, and it produces one obligation and one question.

The obligation: name the recognised President-General and Secretary of Obi Mbieri Autonomous Community, and produce the certificate of recognition.

The question: why was Seplat’s representative present at a meeting of traditional rulers on 31 July, and why did he account to that meeting for the company’s engagements, if traditional rulers have no standing in this matter? A party that attends a forum, addresses it, and reports to it cannot afterwards deny that forum’s competence. In law that is approbation and reprobation, and it is not permitted.

The question is not which account is the more respectable. The question is which one describes what actually happened, and who put their name to it.

He concedes the election. He will not name the winner.

The advertorial states that Mr. Oparaugo refused to participate in the community election supervised by government, and installed himself instead.

Read that sentence closely, because the writer has given away his own case. To say a man boycotted a supervised election is to concede four things at once: that an election was held; that a government authority supervised it; that the exercise produced a result; and that some person or persons emerged from it as the recognised executive of Obi Mbieri Autonomous Community.

Every one of those concessions is documentary. A supervised election generates a notice, a date, a supervising officer, a return, and a certificate of recognition issued by the appropriate arm of state. These are not private papers. They are held by the ministry responsible for community affairs, and any properly recognised executive holds its own copy and produces it as a matter of routine.

So the writer is not being asked to prove a contested fact. He is being asked to produce a document his own account says must exist.

He tells us who lost. He will not tell us who won. Name the President-General. Name the Secretary. Publish the certificate and its date. If that executive is properly constituted, this section is answered in a single line, and the community will accept it and move on.

Two host communities. Two unnamed executives.

The writer corrects the earlier report on one point of fact: that the Aku Field lies across both Obi Mbieri and Ezi Mbieri Autonomous Communities, with Umuagwu and Achi as the host villages.

We accept the correction and thank him for it. But he has not noticed that it doubles the difficulty he set out to dispel.

If the field spans two autonomous communities, then two recognised executives must be identified, not one. Two sets of instruments will be signed. Two sets of signatories will bind their people. Two development trusts, or one trust with two designated host communities, must be constituted and evidenced. The advertorial names neither executive.

The correction carries a further consequence he may not have weighed. He tells us that Eze Henry Madumere of Ezi Autonomous Community is late. Ezi Mbieri therefore has no sitting traditional ruler, and Obi Mbieri’s has been abroad for years. Across the entire field, then, there is at present no traditional authority in place to observe what is signed, or to caution against what is signed wrongly.

That is precisely why the written record matters more here than it would elsewhere, not less. Where customary oversight is vacant on both sides of a field, the documents are the only remaining check. Publish them.

The absence cannot be both irrelevant and exploitable.

Two propositions are advanced in the same piece.

The first: that palaces have no role in these matters, that no oil company deals with an Eze, and that Seplat’s activities continue notwithstanding that one Eze is late and the other is receiving treatment abroad.

The second: that certain individuals are exploiting the medical vacation of the traditional ruler to position themselves for leadership and to gain access to community resources.

These cannot both be true. If the palace stands outside the chain of authority over oil engagement, then the Eze’s absence opens no door to community resources, and there is nothing at that palace for anyone to exploit. The alarm the writer raises is only intelligible if the palace matters. He has raised it, and in raising it he has told us that it matters.

We agree with his second proposition. It is, in substance, the concern the first report expressed. The disagreement is narrower than he supposes: he says the danger comes from men seeking office, while our concern is that a company entered through a palace whose occupant has been out of the country for more than six years, and will not say who received it there. Both worries share a single root — an absent Eze, and an unnamed man standing in his place.

The writer concedes that companies come to the palace.

Having argued that all official negotiation is with the town union, the writer adds that it is customary and respectful for a company to pay a courtesy visit to the palace of the traditional ruler.

That concession disposes of his own defence.

The allegation was never that Seplat negotiated at a palace rather than with a union. The allegation was that Seplat’s representative told seven traditional rulers, in formal session on 31 July, that the company had engaged Eze Osuji — and that when asked afterwards who had been met at that palace, he would not say.

The writer has now confirmed that such palace contact is normal practice. Good. Then there is no reason to withhold the name. A courtesy visit is an innocent thing, and an innocent thing has nothing to hide. If the visit was ordinary, the answer is ordinary too: state who received Seplat at the palace of Eze Osuji, and in what capacity.

Note also what a courtesy visit is not. It is not a licence to sign. If the person received there purported to speak for Obi Mbieri, the visit was no longer a courtesy — and the community is entitled to know which of the two it was.

“Nothing has begun” and “discussions are ongoing” cannot both be true

A fire cannot be unlit and burning at the same time.

The advertorial argues that no diversion is possible because exploration has not started. In the same column it states that Seplat is currently in discussions with two town unions on employment, and separately with Ihitte Mbieri and Ubomiri. It further confirms that landowners are being engaged, and that the site is being cleared and fenced.

Clearing and fencing land is not an intention. It is entry, occupation and physical alteration of ancestral land. That activity engages, at minimum:

surface rights and compensation in respect of the landholders affected;

an Environmental Impact Assessment under the Environmental Impact Assessment Act, before ground is broken;

the consent of the persons in whom the land is vested under customary law.

The complaint was never that money had been shared. It was that entry occurred without a properly constituted counterparty. The advertorial concedes the entry and disputes only its propriety. In pleading, that is confession and avoidance — not denial.

The Petroleum Industry Act does not wait for first oil

The advertorial’s central assurance — that community benefit only arises upon commencement of operations — is not what the law provides.

Under Chapter 3 of the Petroleum Industry Act 2021, a settlor holding an upstream licence or lease is required to incorporate a Host Communities Development Trust, conduct a needs assessment with the host communities, constitute a Board of Trustees, and prepare a development plan. These duties attach to the holding of the licence and to statutory timelines — not to the arrival of the first barrel.

So the questions become documentary, and they are simple:

Has the Host Communities Development Trust for this field been incorporated? On what date, and with what registration number?

Which communities are designated host communities in that instrument — and on what basis was the designation made?

Who sits on the Board of Trustees, and who nominated them?

Has the needs assessment been conducted, and by whom?

If those documents exist and are in order, they end this dispute in a single afternoon. If they do not exist, then the community’s concern was well founded, and no advertorial will cure it.

Character is not evidence

A substantial part of the advertorial is devoted not to facts but to two most respected named men: Professor KC. Ndikom, the only Traditional Prime minister of Obi-Mbieri and Chief Oparaugo the only President General of Obi-Mbieri Town Union.  

Three observations.

First, the advertorial describes Professor KC. Ndikom in two ways that cannot stand together. In one passage he is the deposed Prime Minister who has refused to vacate office. In another, oil companies are said not to deal with a self-styled Prime Minister. To depose a man is to concede that he held the office. To call him self-styled is to deny that he ever did. Both cannot be true of the same man, and neither is pleaded with particulars.

Second, Chief Oparaugo is said to have been warned by the supervising authorities and to be reportedly in hiding. A man who grants an attributed interview to a newspaper is not conducting himself as a man in hiding.

Third, and most importantly: he who asserts must prove. Deposition is effected by an instrument. Elections produce returns and certificates. Official warnings are issued in writing. Not one such document was published. Assertions of that gravity against named living persons, made in purchased space, carry consequences for the person who makes them and for the platform that carries them.

We will not answer in kind. We will answer with documents, and we invite the same.

What is actually being asked

Not money. Not the removal of Seplat. Not the halting of development. Obi Mbieri wants the oil in its soil to become a road, a school, a clinic and a job — and it wants that to happen on a record that will still survive scrutiny in ten years’ time.

We therefore ask, publicly, for the production of:

The identity and capacity of the person Seplat met at the palace of Eze Osuji on or about 31 July 2026.

This matters to the people of Obi Mbieri because it was reported in Watchdog Newspaper of 2 July 2024, at page 4, that the compound, premises and throne of Eze Osuji had been used to carry out sacrileges in his absence. That report stands on the public record and can be verified by any reader. We raise it not as an accusation against any person, but as the reason the identity of whoever received a licensed operator at that palace cannot be treated as a small matter.

The certificate of recognition of the Obi Mbieri Autonomous Community town union executive currently recognised by law, together with the date of the supervised election that produced it and the authority that supervised it. We ask because more than one body presently lays claim to that name, and only a certificate can settle which is which. One does not set record straight by mere ly, mentioning the name "Town Union "  

Every memorandum of understanding, land access agreement, community development agreement or consent instrument executed in respect of the Aku Field to date, and the names and capacities of every signatory.

The Host Communities Development Trust registration documents, the designated host communities, and the Board of Trustees.

The surface rights compensation schedule and the list of affected landholders in Umuagwu and Achi.

The Environmental Impact Assessment status prior to the clearing and fencing of the site.

Confirmation of who commissioned and paid for the advertorial of 19 August, published beneath the Seplat Energy mark by a writer who states that he does not speak for Seplat.

Conclusion

The writer asks what wealth is being diverted before exploration has begun. That is the wrong question, and it was answered before it was asked. What is at stake is not barrels.

It is authority — who signs, on whose behalf, and by what mandate. Every dispute that has poisoned a host community elsewhere in this region began exactly here: with an unnamed signatory and an unexamined agreement.

These seven documents will settle this. Publish them, and there will be nothing left to argue about. Decline to publish them, and the community will be entitled to draw the only inference that silence permits.

Our questions have not changed: 

“Therefore, after all the arguments have been made, the fundamental questions remain:

WHO ARE THE INDIVIDUALS OR BODIES NEGOTIATING ON 

BEHALF OF OBI-MBIERI?

UNDER WHAT AUTHORITY ARE THEY ACTING?

WHEN DID THAT AUTHORITY BEGIN?

HOW LONG HAS THIS PROCESS BEEN GOING ON?

WHAT EXACTLY ARE THEY NEGOTIATING?

WHAT COMMITMENTS, IF ANY, HAVE BEEN MADE?

HOW MUCH OIL HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED IN EACH OF THE TWO 

AUTONOMOUS COMMUNITIES?

HOW LONG HAS THE RESOURCE BEEN KNOWN OR UNDER 

ASSESSMENT?

AND WHY SHOULD THE PEOPLE OF OBI-MBIERI NOT KNOW?

We are not opposed to Seplat Energy. We are opposed to a record that cannot be shown.