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Tag: Saro-Wiwa

  • MOSOP to FG: honour Saro-Wiwa, others

    MOSOP to FG: honour Saro-Wiwa, others

    The Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) has urged the Federal Government to start off the process of clearing the image of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others who were killed by the military government 22 years ago.

    MOSOP is a social-cultural/political organization of the people of Ogoniland, an oil producing community in the Niger Delta region.

    The President of the group, Legborsi Pyagbara, made the call at the 22nd annual remembrance day ceremony of the deceased in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital yesterday.

    They are  Ken Saro-Wiwa,  Chief Edward Kobani,  Albert Badey,  John Kpuinen, Barinem Kiobel, Chief S. N.  Orage,  Nordu Eawo and  Chief T.  B. Orage. Others included Saturday Dobee,  Daniel Gbokoo,  Paul Levura,  Baribor Bera,  Garrick Leton, Felix Nuate, among others, who died in the course of the struggle.

    The people of the oil rich area were crying against neglect, marginalization, injustice and inequality and other problems confronting them.

    They victims led the struggle for the emancipation of Ogoni people.

    They were prosecuted, convicted and  killed by hanging.

    The MOSOP President at the event called  on Buhari to set in motion the process to clear the  names of Ogoni-nine of any criminal involvement and  build a national monument in their honour  and memory as a way to demonstrate to the people of Ogoni that the government shares in their pain.

    “MOSOP believes that the period of this commemoration provides the government of Nigeria with the opportunity to consummate the process of national healing and reconciliation with the Ogoni people by formally clearing the names of the Ogoni nine of these wrongs and establish a national monument in their honour and memory,”he said. They noted that as Ogoni land remains no go area for Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), they condemned the alleged recent attempt by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to impose another company on Ogoni oil bloc without the consent of the people of Ogoni, nor holding meaningful consultations with the host communities.

    The body also tasked Buhari to initiate the process of giving national honour to the nine martyrs, adding that immortalizing the individuals and clearing their names  would erase the blot  and perfect the quest for national healing and reconciliation.

    Also Resident Coordinator, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Nigeria, Dr. Edward Kallon, who was represented by Mr. Willbroad Ngambi, the UN representative in the South-South Geo-political zone, said justice ensures peace in every society, noting that the United Nations was interested in promoting environment and human rights.

  • Remembering Saro Wiwa and Ogoni Nine

    SIR: On November 10, 1995, Ken Saro Wiwa and eight others were summarily executed after a dubious military panel judgement.

    Whenever I remember Ken Saro Wiwa, my heart bleeds. My heart bleeds at the injustice of his death and the remaining members of the Ogoni nine. My heart bleeds at the conspiracy of the military junta and the multinational oil company. Thinking about this uncommon hero who made the ultimate sacrifice, a question comes to mind: did Ken Saro Wiwa die in vain?

    This is a question with two different answers.

    No. Because his death further drew international attention to the environmental degradation, actions and inactions of Shell plc. After another major oil spill 14 years after his death (2008), in a milestone decision, Shell settled a law suit out of court by paying £55m to Bodo community, the largest of such kind of payment to an African community by a multinational company. Every of the villagers affected by that oil spill got N600,000 compensation. Meanwhile, in 2009, Shell paid $15.5m to the families of the Ogoni nine to settle a legal action over Shells involvement in the killing of the Ogoni nine.

    No. Because, 22 years after his death, the environmental degradation still continues in Ogoni and the rest of the Niger Delta. Farms destroyed, waters polluted, the people still live in poverty. The region is still not developed; despite sitting on one of the largest deposit of riches in the world. How heartbreaking!

    It would be befitting if the Nigerian government immortalize this legend by naming November 10 ‘The Ogoni Nine day’ and name a street after Ken Saro Wiwa in the federal capital. Interested state governments can follow suit by naming streets after him in their respective states.

    ‘… The labour of our heroes past, shall never be in vain …’

    Even if the government does not immortalize him, Ken Saro Wiwa will forever live in our hearts. HE WILL NEVER DIE.

     

    • Adeyemi Ahmed Abiodun,

    Ilorin, Kwara State.

  • Saro-Wiwa, Benin Republic and restructuring

    Ken Saro-Wiwa was the pipe-smoking Ogoni writer and rights activist. He had a small physical carriage. But each time he sneezed, Nigeria the behemoth caught cold. So when asked why the small ‘unarmed’ man from a minority stock would discomfit a giant, he would fire back aggressively: “What do you mean? What has size got to do with it? Size has little to do with it!”

    Indeed size has nothing to do with acumen. Otherwise small Cuba wouldn’t outstrip mighty United States of America in healthcare on a doctor-population basis. Nor would little South Korea be rated the most industrialized globally on account of industry spread. And tiny Israel wouldn’t be the home of military drone technology, a feat denied most far more celebrated and wealthier nations.

    It is the reason Nigeria must wake up and put aside this song and dance about our ‘giant-ness’ and learn from little Benin Republic nearby. Its dot-like size hasn’t prevented it from seeking to lay the basis for lasting change and enduring development of its citizens by restructuring the polity. In this Francophone country, the real change is taking place under their leader called Patrice Talon. Let’s see what this man popular called the Cotton King is doing.

    Like our own President Muhammadu Buhari, the Beninois leader has the following as his agenda: Combat corruption, improve the economy and fight terrorism through the instrumentality of diplomacy. He adds: “My mandate will be a mandate of rupture, transition and reforms.” Asked what would come first and remain the compass of his five-year term, Talon declared: “I will first and foremost tackle constitutional reform” insisting he would work towards a one-off presidential tenure for himself and those coming after him.

    In other words there would be no question of a second term for him and subsequent Benin presidents. It was a promise Talon made when he campaigned for office. He reinforced that solemn pact when he was sworn in in April at the Charles de Gaulle Stadium in Porto Novo. Under the constitution Talon is allowed to seek a second five-year term as did his predecessor Thomas Boni Yayi who served for 10 years. Now the new president says two terms-successive or staggered – give way to what he calls “presidential complacency.”

    But let him come to Nigeria; we shall give him free but enriching tutorials on how we have suffered at the hands of politicians who are glued to the romanticism of a presidential system in need of the knife. We shall tell him how the breed here are not OK with two terms; they would scheme a third, a fourth, a proxy, nay an unending term even when the constitution says all these are an anathema. We shall lead Talon into the world of a man who argued that politics is nothing but a game of death. We shall show him how because we have failed to restructure and go for fundamental changes in our federal set-up since the Britons left us, we have had a civil war, upheavals that have landed us on the verge of anarchy, communal clashes, economic dislocations, poverty in the midst of plenty and agony of living with potentially rich states that must depend on the centre for sustenance.

    Nigeria needs to learn from Benin and “first and foremost tackle constitutional reform,” aka restructuring. Our problems are a flow from the poorly sculpted structure we are operating. We must work on it to reduce the power of the central government so that the resulting centrifugal arrangement would allow the outposts of governance and their citizens to engage in creative economic enterprise for wealth generation, growth and development. Under that order, a governor controls his or her own police rather than looking for clearance for action from a distant authority when unruly gangs of herdsmen invade his or her territory on a killing spree.

    If we rejig the constitution to limit the President’s mandate to a one-off five-year term as President Talon is doing in Benin, it would sink the do-or-die inclination and orientation of our politicians and other citizens lured into office by the prospects of nearly a decade of pomp, power and opulence. At the lower levels of governance, the governors also would be made to have a single tenure. What would you be giving to the society that you couldn’t offer in four or five years? Listlessness and declining productivity set in after the first round. That has been our experience in Nigeria. It is what Benin’s new leader is calling “presidential complacency”.

    How about the 36-state shape of Nigeria? It should be abolished. Let the states be boxed back into the old regional outlook or be re-organized along the current geo-political zones. As they are, the states are a little higher than local governments. The central government in Abuja has enervated them the same way Nigeria has denuded its youth, men and women to the point that these critical segments of the society have also resigned themselves to fatal idleness and worthlessness.

    The reform we desire should also address the question of our bicameral National Assembly. If we must have the two chambers, then we would have to reduce their numbers to a third of what we have. What are we doing with 109 Senators and 360 representatives? Each takes home ginormous emoluments in a country with tens of millions of hungry and angry people who wake up working out schemes to be like these politicians or devising means of swindling the state or their fellow citizens. A new order must emerge to displace what we have now.

    I think Buhari should follow in the footsteps of the man next door. He should “first and foremost tackle constitutional reform” that is restructure Nigeria. He will discover to his joy that if we take up this task of tackling the demons responsible for the malaise and tremors in the society and its politics and economy, those distortions would also recede.

    The Republic of Benin posts the same dismal indices of arrested development as Nigeria: Unemployment, poverty, corruption and leadership succession challenges. In fact recently on the question of corruption, a European nation suspended aid to Benin when millions of dollars meant for a project went missing. It was a major scandal that cost a cabinet minister his job. As in Nigeria, its leaders are often trapped in the sit-tight snare. So Nigeria and Benin experience some pangs of nation building arising from a structural paradigm defect.

    But while battling corruption, the Beninois authorities have discovered that this social disease is only a symptom of a deep-seated problem traceable to the structure of the society.

    President Buhari will leave behind a lasting legacy if he restructures the country constitutionally. It’s the only way to outlaw the conditions that throw up corruption, graveyard states, poverty, politics of self-interest, mass unemployment, insecurity and a massive population unindexed with patriotism and spirit of enterprise and adventure to rejuvenate the society.

    Yes, Nigeria needs to fight corruption. But like Benin Republic, we need to push simultaneously for a fundamental change from the present system which is the mother of all our woes. Those before Buhari failed because they failed to drop this cursed system.

     

    • Ojewale is a writer and journalist in Ota, Ogun State.
  • Saro-Wiwa: 20 years after

    Saro-Wiwa: 20 years after

    •The state murder of the Ogoni activists should be revisited and Saro-Wiwa declared a hero

    The brutal actions by the Abacha junta which brought the country odium from the international community, further justified the case made for the isolation of the country and represented a dark phase in her history. The hurriedly assembled Ibrahim Auta Panel is widely believed to have acted a script written by the powers-that-be. It failed all the tests of a properly constituted court or tribunal, and had no time to consider the objections by the defence team. It was obvious that the hangings of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others were a task that must be done.

    General Sani Abacha made himself a maximum ruler and sought to cow his opponents who were canvassing democratic rule and whoever suggested that he had no business leading the country. Thus, Saro-Wiwa who founded the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People was made a scapegoat. Saro-Wiwa, a former state commissioner, writer and intellectual, founded the movement to campaign against the oil exploration companies and the Federal Government that went about exploiting the natural resource without caring for the people of the Niger Delta. He had gained ground in the campaign against the Royal Dutch oil company and sensitised the people to join the protest. It is widely believed that this was the crime for which he paid the maximum penalty. He was executed for standing for the rights of his people; for seeking protection of their environment.

    It is instructive that, 14 years after the execution, the international oil company in 2009 agreed to a compensation of 15.5 million dollars for the families. Similarly, the families of the Ogoni Four  for whose murder Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues were killed, reconciled with the families of the executed nine.

    Two decades after the execution is a long time to draw the curtains on the matter. The Federal Government has a duty to set up a panel to review the kangaroo trial. The state has a responsibility to protect lives and property, not take them. Wherever a rape of justice is found to have been committed in history, apology is extracted and, when necessary, compensation paid. In this case, the activists were not properly tried even as they were denied the right to appeal. If successive generations of those who carted Africans into slavery could apologise for the sins of their forebears, and the government and people of Japan could seek forgiveness for turning many into sex slaves decades back, there is no reason the Nigerian government should not accord dignity to the memory of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues by tendering unreserved apologies for the state murder.

    Last year, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) corroborated the claims that formed the basis of the activism in the Niger Delta for which Saro-Wiwa stood out. A report by the United Nations body acknowledged the atrocities the oil companies had committed in the area as they abandoned all concerns that ought to have been taken into consideration.

    We call for a speedy consideration of the Petroleum Industry Bill before the National Assembly and its enactment. There must be standards in the operations of the oil companies. The government must rise to its responsibilities. The states, local governments and communities bearing crude oil and other minerals must be involved in all aspects of their exploration.

    The passage of the Bill and enthronement of globally accepted standards in the process of exploration would be the most befitting memorial to the murdered activists. A judicial review towards declaring him innocent should be instituted without delay. Ken Saro-Wiwa is a hero, not a villain. In the same way that the verdict on General Olusegun Obasanjo and others found guilty of a phantom coup was reversed, this travesty must be, too.

  • Remembering Saro-Wiwa

    Twenty years ago on November 10, 1995, more than two years after he made this grim prediction, Ken Saro-Wiwa, renowned writer, TV producer, newspaper columnist and irrepressible minority and environment rights campaigner did indeed die. But not a natural death. He was executed along with eight others by a Nigerian state in the grip of military dictator Sani Abacha who felt he had run out of patience with the man that pummelled Nigeria for her tragic ecological record in the Niger Delta notably, Ogoni land.

    Ken battled the reckless degradation of Ogoni as no one else did. For years before he was arrested and subjected to a kangaroo trial that ended with his execution, Saro-Wiwa stood on the tripod of intellectual discourse, writing and peaceful protests to lash out at the conspiracy of government and the oil companies that despoiled his people. He argued that this infernal bond between an “irresponsible” government and “indifferent” oil companies resulting in death-dealing blows on his kinsmen was unacceptable. Big money came from the frenetic oil exploration (exploitation). But Ogoni had nothing to show for being the bird that produced the golden eggs. Instead Ogoni had pain. Saro-Wiwa lamented that these arose from the fact that in a so-called federal set up, the rights of the minority were appropriated by the state and added to the rights of the majority ethnic groups.

    So quite early in his life, Saro-Wiwa decided to fight the system that encouraged this arrangement. He studied the writings of the great Chief Obafemi Awolowo, for whom he had a god-like reverence. Awo’s philosophy on how to handle the minority question-detailed in three of the major books he wrote between the 50s and 60s-warned against a contraption justifying or allowing for the economic and political suppression of the small groups by the ethnic ones. The system must accommodate the minorities as equal partners enjoying the same rights as the majors; they must have autonomy and be allowed control of their resources and their environment in the same way the majority was allowed. He predicted calamitous outcome if the minorities were not so permitted to be. The collapse of Yugoslavia and USSR proved Awolowo right.

    Now Saro-Wiwa looked at Ogoni and concluded that its minority status (they were 500,000 in 1993) and the country’s dim view of such a group were responsible for its suffering. The system must be displaced to give the Ogoni a better deal. The problem had nothing to do with the size of Ogoni. The culprit was the system.

    But how would one man and a defenceless half a million win a physical war against a country of 80 million with a well kitted military force headed by a draconian military ruler?

    Secession was out of the question. It would be suicidal, according to Saro-Wiwa. Rebellion of the type Isaac Adaka Boro, another Niger Delta son, tried was also ruled out. So what could Saro-Wiwa do? Intellectual agitation and peaceful activism won the day. This is what he told a journalist: “My effort is very intellectual. It is backed by theories, thoughts and ideas which will in fact matter to the rest of Africa in the course of time.”

    Ken Saro-Wiwa began to prepare for the crusade of liberating Ogoni from the hands of the state and the oil companies. His sojourn in government as regional commissioner for education in the early 70s was a disaster as he was dismissed in 1973 because of his support for Ogoni autonomy. He had also been a teaching assistant at the University of Lagos and civilian administrator of Bonny, a port city, after being a strong supporter of the federal forces during the Civil War. He didn’t make sufficient money from his salaries to launch him into a long-haul battle against the system that oppressed his people.

    So from 1974, he went into business, buying and selling. “By 1984,” he said, “I felt I had earned enough money for the purpose I wanted to live for.”

    The ethical intellectual that he was, Saro-Wiwa took to writing. He had an engaging column Similia in a leading newspaper. But the authorities stopped him from continuing because according to one editor, “Ken was using the column for Ogoni politics.” The activist also launched the hilarious TV soap Basi & Co that pilloried the foibles of the society. He wrote well-received books ,Sozaboy: a novel in rotten English and On a darkling plain: An account of the Nigerian Civil War, among several other literary efforts.

    From 1990, Saro-Wiwa opened the chapter that led to his fatal confrontation with the government. He used every available forum he came across – local and global – to condemn in very strong terms the destruction of lives in Ogoni through oil exploration. He calculated quite methodically that the Nigerian government and the oil companies owed his people rents and royalties the enormous sum of US$30billion. He asked the government and the companies to pay the debt by way of redressing the wrongs done against his people.

    His platforms were the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni people (MOSOP) and peaceful protests, rallies and conferences. He was never known to opt for violence. Instead he wielded brain power based on superior historical analysis.

    But Nigeria under Abacha would not let such a man have his way, a man who sought to re-order the polity to the path of sanity, since Saro-Wiwa’s agenda would deny the dictator along with the local exploiter class and the foreign collaborators the wealth they were using to emasculate the Ogoni. There were trumped up charges of murder that sent Saro-Wiwa to the gallows on Nov.10, 1995. But death has not silenced the battle he fought.

    Indeed twenty years after that death, Saro-Wiwa has been vindicated. The recent reality of a minority president of Nigeria is one such recognition. The proclamation of a highly successful Amnesty programme for the Niger Delta militants is another positive outcome. It is part of what he did that led the United Nations in 2011 to call for an unprecedented clean-up fund of one billion dollars for oil spills in Ogoni land. The UN report on this recalled virtually everything Ken Saro-Wiwa said: “I looked at Ogoni and found that the entire place was now a waste land; and that we are the victims of an ecological war, an ecological war that is very serious and unconventional. It is unconventional because no bones are broken, no one is maimed. People are not alarmed because they can’t see what is happening. But human beings are at risk. The air and water are poisoned. Finally, the land itself dies. That is what is happening to the Ogoni people.”

    Now how do you honour such a visionary patriot? First the government needs to clear him of the murder verdict that led to his death. Next we must erect a befitting national monument in Ogoni in his honour. We must also be serious with the project of cleaning up Ogoni land as demanded by Saro-Wiwa and the United Nations. That is the only way the living can honour the ideals of those who died in the struggle for justice.

  • Remembering Saro-Wiwa, Ogoni Nine

    Remembering Saro-Wiwa, Ogoni Nine

    The late famous environmentalist, Ken Saro-Wiwa was synonymous with the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). He was born on October 10, 1941 and became the President of MOSOP on July 6, 1993.

    As a result of his agitation against the backwardness of his people and land due to environmental degradation resulting from oil exploration, Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged at the Port Harcourt Prisons on Friday, November 10, 1995, along with eight other Ogoni martyrs. They were Dr. Barinem Kiobel, John Kpuinem, Baribor Bera, Felix Nuate, Paul Levura, Daniel Gbokoo, Saturday Doobee and Nordu Eawo, during the regime of the late Gen. Sani Abacha.

    Before his death, Saro-Wiwa had said: “The Ogoni took stock of their condition and found out that, in spite of the stupendous oil and gas wealth of their land, they were extremely poor, had no social amenities, unemployment was running at over 70 per cent and they were powerless, as an ethnic minority, in a country of over 100 million people, dispersed in over two hundred nations and ethnic groups, to do anything to alleviate their condition.

    “Worse, their environment was completely devastated by decades of reckless oil exploitation or ecological warfare by Shell.”

    On June 21, 1993, Ken Saro-Wiwa was arrested and detained in Owerri, together with two other MOSOP activists namely N.G. Dube and Kobari Nwile. Criminal charges were brought against them for belonging to MOSOP.

    Prior to his arrest, Ken Saro-Wiwa had travelled to The Hague in Netherlands in July 1992 where he registered MOSOP with the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisations (UNPO), whose charter was embedded in non-violence.

    Ken Saro-Wiwa also brought the suffering of his people to the attention of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva, Switzerland and made useful contacts with international environmental groups and business organisations such as the London-based Body Shop International, whose founder and chief executive, Anita Roddick, had long been involved in such campaigns as MOSOP was pushing in Nigeria.

    Saro-Wiwa said in the mid-1992: “We depend on fishing and farming, and to take that away from us, it is genocide. If you take away our land, and then you pollute the water and so on, it is just saying we do not have any right to live.”

    The environmentalist declared that gas flaring had destroyed the flora and fauna of the land, polluted the atmosphere and poisoned the inhabitants of the surrounding areas whose inhabitants suffer from partial deafness and respiratory diseases.

    The people also accused SPDC and some Ogoni elders of sabotaging the efforts of MOSOP. On May 21, 1994, Ogoni leaders, namely Chief Edward Kobani, a former Commissioner in the Rivers State Government, who had resigned as Vice-President of MOSOP, along with Dr. Garrick Barile Leton (MOSOP’s pioneer President); Albert Badey, an ex-Secretary to the Rivers State Government (SSG); Samuel Orage, a former Rivers State Commissioner; and Theophilus Orage, an ex-Secretary of the Gokana Council of Chiefs; (Ogoni-four), who had earlier been labelled “vultures” by some Ogoni people, were allegedly murdered in a mob raid at Giokoo in Gokana Local Government Area during a meeting at the Gbenemene’s (King’s) Palace Hall.

    Two prominent Ogoni leaders: Alhaji Mohammed Kobani, brother to Chief Edward Kobani and Mr. Francis Kpai, who were also at the Giokoo meeting, escaped from the mob action and ran from the king’s palace into the ancestral shrine: Gberesaako, of the Gokana people.

    On May 21, 1994, Ken Saro-Wiwa; Ledum Mitee, Dr. Barinem Kiobel and 12 others were arrested by soldiers and accused of been instigators of the Giokoo mob action and the murder of the four prominent Ogoni sons.

    The Justice Ibrahim Auta-led Ogoni Civil Disturbances Tribunal, set up by the then Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, was inaugurated by the then Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mohammed Bello, in November 1994, to try the 15 Ogoni men, who were charged with the killing of the Ogoni-four. The trial commenced in February 1995.

    The Justice Ibrahim Auta-led tribunal tried the Ogoni-Nine namely Ken Saro-Wiwa, Dr. Barinem Kiobel, John Kpuinem, Baribor Bera, Felix Nuate, Paul Levura, Daniel Gbokoo, Saturday Doobee and Nordu Eawo and convicted them the trumped-up charge of murder of the Ogoni-four, sentenced them to death by hanging on October 31, 1995, while Gen. Abacha, confirmed the death sentence on November 8, 1995. They were hanged at the Port Harcourt Prisons in the morning of Friday, November 10, 1995.

    On September 1, 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa, in his pre-conviction statement to the Justice Ibrahim Auta-led Ogoni civil disturbances tribunal, entitled “Shell is Here on Trial,” said: “My Lord, since my arrest on the 21st of May, 1994, I have been subjected to physical and mental torture, held incommunicado and denied food for weeks and medical attention for months. My 74-year-old mother has been whipped and arrested, my wife beaten and threatened with detention. The three telephone lines to my office and residence cut and they remain cut to this day. My office and home have been ransacked on three different occasions and personal and family property, official files and documents taken away without documentation.

    “I have been calumniated in the press and on satellite television before the world by a Rivers State Government anxious to prejudice the mind of the public and to convince the public of my guilt, even before trial.

    “The fact that a case of homicide is being charged before a tribunal, set up under Decree No. 2 of 1987, speaks for itself. I am aware of the many strictures laid against the decree and this tribunal by local and international observers.

    “All the same, I have followed the proceedings here with keen and detailed interest, not only because I am charged before this tribunal, but also because, as a writer, I am a custodian of the conscience of society.

    “I regret that the legal counsel I freely chose, Gani Fawehinmi, the human rights hero and pride of this country, was forced to withdraw. His withdrawal has denied credibility to this trial.

    “My Lord, we all stand before history. I am a man of peace, of ideas. I am appalled by the denigrating poverty of my people, who live on a richly-endowed land, distressed by their political marginalisation and economic strangulation, angered by the devastation of their land, their ultimate heritage, anxious to preserve their right to life and to a decent living and determined to usher into this country as a whole, a fair and just democratic system, which protects everyone and every ethnic group and gives us all a valid claim to human civilisation.

    “I have devoted all my intellectual and material resources, my very life, to a cause in which I have total belief and from which I cannot be blackmailed or intimidated.

    I have no doubt at all about the ultimate success of my cause, no matter the trials and tribulations which I and those who believe with me may encounter on our journey. Nor imprisonment nor death can stop our ultimate victory.

    “I repeat that we all stand before history. I and my colleagues are not the only ones on trial. Shell is here on trial and it is as well that it is represented by a counsel said to be holding a watching brief. The company has, indeed, ducked this particular trial, but its day will surely come and the lessons learnt here may prove useful to it, for there is no doubt in my mind that the ecological war the company has waged in the Delta will be called to question sooner than later and the crimes of that war be duly punished. The crime of the company’s dirty war against the Ogoni people will also be punished.

    “On trial also is the Nigerian nation, its present rulers and all those who assist them. Any nation which can do to the weak and disadvantaged, what the Nigerian nation has done to the Ogoni, loses a claim to independence and to freedom from outside influence.

    “I am not one of those who shy away from protesting injustice and oppression, arguing that they are expected of a military regime. The military do not act alone. They are supported by a gaggle of politicians, lawyers, judges, academics and businessmen, all of them hiding under the claim that they are only doing their duty, men and women too afraid to wash their pants of their urine.

    “In my innocence of the false charges I face here, in my utter conviction, I call upon the Ogoni people, the peoples of the Niger Delta, and the oppressed ethnic minorities of Nigeria to stand up now and fight fearlessly and peacefully for their rights. History is on their side, God is on their side.”

    Despite the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni martyrs, the non-violent agitations/struggle by Ogoni people; adequately coordinated by the leadership of MOSOP, are continuing to ensure justice, equity, fairness and commensurate development of the neglected Ogoni land and empowerment of the marginalised people.

  • Entries for Ken Saro Wiwa book review competition begins

    Entries for Ken Saro Wiwa book review competition begins

    The organisers of the Lagos Book and Art Festival (LABAF)have called for  entries for reviews of any one of five works of Ken Saro Wiwa’s fiction  and drama.

    The best review of either ‘Sozaboy’, ‘A Forest of Flowers’, ‘Adaku and  Other Stories’, ‘Prisoners of Jebs’, or a joint review of ‘Basi and  Compan’y and ‘Transistor Radio’ will receive a humble 100,000Naira prize  money at the opening day of the Festival, at Freedom Park in Lagos, on  November 13, 2015.

    The competition is open to Nigerians aged between 18 and 41, i.e those  who were either not born, or were just teenagers or at most aged 21, at  the time of the death of this Nigerian literary icon.

    The entries are to be submitted to Mr. Toni Kan, chairman of the panel  of judges, on or before 5pm on November 6, 2015. Mr. Kan is the author  of ‘Nights of The Creaking Bed’ and brand ambassador for the Samsung  Galaxy Note 5. Each review should be no more than 1,000 words and  typewritten and sent via email to tonikan11@gmail.com.

    “The competition does three things”, according to Jahman Anikulapo,  programme chairman of the Committee For Relevant Art(CORA), organisers  of LABAF, “it serves to improve on the human infrastructure of reading;  there cannot be a robust literary/literacy subculture, or a book market,  without a vibrant review culture. The grounds on which conversations of  culture stand, in the Nigerian arts landscape today, is shaky.

    “It also helps to memorialise Mr Saro Wiwa, to whom the theme of this  year’s edition of the Festival is dedicated. Saro-Wiwa was murdered by  the state on November 10, 1995.

    “And Finally, it is the foundation of CORA/LABAF Annual Literature

    Review contest.”

    Anikulapo added: “So much effort has been paid, by sundry sponsors,  to writers of books and less to the infrastructure of reading. CORA  fancies itself as a landscapist and as we have pioneered the idea of  Book Festivals with programme content, as opposed to book fairs in the  country, we also want to sow seeds in the area of getting whole  communities, as opposed to writers alone, to share in the joy of  reading.

  • ‘Nigeria consumes its courageous voices’

    ‘Nigeria consumes its courageous voices’

    Nineteen years after, the death of Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa is still raising dust in some quarters. As civil rights activists, scholars and writers across the world commemorate the anniversary of his brutal execution this month, critics say Saro-Wiwa represents Nigeria’s unfinished business. But, is his struggle a waste? Critics highlighted his relevance to the struggle for change and more. Senior Correspondent, Evelyn Osagie reports.

    There is something about November. As the air begins to change and the days begin to hurry to the close of the year, the Nigerian literati have come to approach the month with mixed feelings.

    It has become a month of sober reflections as they remember two of their iconic voices –Chinua Achebe and Ken Saro-Wiwa.

    Incidentally, both writers are dead. One died at the ripe age of 83; the other’s life was cut short. And so, while it is the birthday anniversary of one, it is the month the other, Saro-Wiwa, met death brutally, 19 years ago, on November 10 to be precise, in the hand of the then military junta.

    That Friday, the literati received the news of his execution with much pain. And, as if it were an icing on a cake, his death, critics say, broke “the icing” that held together “the cake” of peace in the oil rich Niger Delta region, birthing several protests which, they opined, ignited the restiveness that the region later witnessed.

    Nineteen years on, Wiwa is still being remembered for the struggle, his sacrifice and the change. As the literati commemorate his death anniversary this month with diverse activities, it calls to mind a symposium on Life and Work of Ken Saro Wiwa: Possibilities for Nigeria held at the just-concluded Port Harcourt Book Festival, Rivers State.

    In short, he was a focus at this year’s edition. Several segments were dedicated to him, including a visit to his office that now houses the Ken Saro-Wiwa Foundation established by his children.

    The organisers, led by Mrs Koko Kalango, said it was an attempt to immortalise him. According to them, they not only believe the late Saro-Wiwa is worthy of emulation, but that the lessons in his example, if emulated, hold a roadmap to Nigeria’s advancement as a nation.

    Little wonder that the symposium had as keynote speaker and discussants, scholars from his home state – Rivers.

    Leading the deliberations was the keynote speaker, Prof Daniel Ogum. With him were the Head of Department, English Studies, University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT), Prof Nkem Okoh; Prof Onyemaechi Udumukwu; Dr Chinyelu Ojukwu; Dr Obari Gomba, who moderated the forum.

    They called him a “visionary social philosopher”, “an uncompromising environmentalist”, “an activist-qua-activist”, “a fearless leader”, “lover of his Ogoni ethnic nation” and more. Saro-Wiwa’s legacies and achievements as a creative icon, they say, live after him.

    Ogum, in his paper entitled: Literature and Legacy called the late Saro-Wiwa “the legendary martyr for humanity”. The martyr, according to him, represents “the unfinished business of Nigeria”, adding that like a yam seedling, although buried in the mound of the Niger Delta liberation farm, Saro-Wiwa is regenerating.

    Lamenting that instead of fighting insurgents, Nigeria is in the habit of killing its brightest minds, he linked the Niger Delta aggression and the Boko Haram insurgency to bad governance, warning that much more would happen if the pressing issues are not addressed. He decried that the region is in a sorry state, urging government and the oil companies to learn from the Saro-Wiwa tragedy.

    He said: “Nigeria structure should preserve, not destroy courageous positive voices. People who spoke up in protest of appalling conditions in the Niger Delta were at risks of attacks, threats to their lives and death. The present mayhem appears to be a blast of a keg of the gunpowder of past misdeeds and negligence. Boko Haram insurgents have questioned our nationhood Had companies acted responsibly in their host communities over the years, there would have been no Ogoni and Shell Crises, no Egni and Total E&P Memorandum of Understanding crises, no Umuechem bloodbath, no Odi disaster and amnesty related issues.

    “Saro-Wiwa came with a message which lives on in his absence. And our thought is to align with Wiwa’s vision of advancement through the principles of equity, who called on the Ogoni people to standby fearlessly and fight for their rights…quantum leap, saying if you must go to equity, you must keep your hands clean. Nigeria cannot be changed until its leadership commit to changing it. It is also hoped that the government, the trans-national oil companies and their agencies will be guided by the landmarks of this event in making policies, especially those policies that affect ethnic minorities.”

    While urging the young, especially up and coming writers, to emulate the example of the late writer, Prof Okoh said: “A writer who is not ready to die for justice is not ready to be a writer. Wiwa was one writer who was not afraid to confront injustice and corruption. Young writers can learn a lot from Wiwa and the role of an artist in development. However, if you are going to confront the authorities you must be ready for the consequences.”

    His comment sparked off heated reaction from the young in the audience and another debate, as many asked: “Must we die before Nigeria gets better?”

    On her part, Dr Ojukwu sued for peace, she urged the youths to shun violence, but to “keep negotiating for peace and talking until agreement is reached”. While calling for forgiveness and reconciliation in the hearts of youths and Nigeria, she named the massive education of youths and women as one of the remedy to curbing insurgencies.

    “For me, therefore, the possibilities for Nigeria are captured in Ken Saro-Wiwa’s booklet, Letter to Ogoni Youth, where he most importantly admonishes the youth of Ogoni to embrace education, hard-work, self-discipline and shun corruption. He, however, adds that: “The qualities which I have urged upon you in this letter are general and should all Nigerians acquire them, we will have a better country catering fairly to the interest of all citizens”. There must always be some light at the end of the tunnel,” she said.

    Prof Udumukwu, who described Wiwa was a gift to Nigeria and not just Rivers State, said the government should make its environment favourable to its young and creative minds. He said: “The ability to recognise our differences is where our possibilities lie. Nigeria’s possibilities can be realised by encouraging a vibrant and active reading culture that goes beyond the university and schools to market places and motor parks.

  • Saro-Wiwa’s last strike at the hangmen

    Saro-Wiwa’s last strike at the hangmen

    Book review

    Title: Silence Would Be Treason- Last Writings of Saro-Wiwa

    Author: Ken Saro-Wiwa

    Reviewer: Patrick Naagbanton

    Publisher: Council for the Develop ment of Social Science Re search in Africa

    Pagination: 180

     

    Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa’s latest book, Silence Would Be Treason – Last Writings of Saro-Wiwa (2013) came to us as a big surprise. Some of us had thought that, “A Month and A Day (1995) was his last memoir. On June 11, 1993, Saro-Wiwa’s international passport was seized by operatives of Nigeria’s secret police, State Security Services (SSS). Ten days after, he was “kidnapped” by plainclothes detectives and held in solitary confinement until July 22, (a month and a day). Saro-Wiwa’s 180-page book (Silence Would be Treason) is published posthumously by the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), Dakar, Senegal.

    Silence Would be Treason is a different detention diary. The title is taken from one of Saro-Wiwa’s poems in the book, “Keep out of Prison,” page 159. From the book, (Silence Would Be Treason) wouldn’t be his last prison or so work. The current memoir is a collection of 28 letters and 28 poems (not 27 poems, page 3) he wrote while in military custody in Port Harcourt to (Sister Majella McCarron, the Irish missionary, teacher, poet, letter writer and environmental activist) between “October 20 and September 14, 1995” (page ix).

    Majella was Saro-Wiwa’s long-time friend and supporter of the Ogoni people’s nonviolence struggle for justice. She preserved them and “In 2011, she donated letters she received from Ken Saro-Wiwa to the library at NUI (National University of Ireland) Maynooth.” (Page vi). There were correspondences between Saro-Wiwa and Majella. We hope she will publish her letters too.

    Nigeria’s leading environmental rights campaigner, poet, activist and architect, Nnimmo Bassey wrote a foreword to the book (page ix-xvii), while three distinguished international scholars (Helen Fallon, Ide Corley and Laurence Cox) all at NUI, edited the book. Bassey in page ix denounced the inhuman conditions Saro-Wiwa was subjected before his hanging on 10th November, 1995. His foreword summarized the entire struggles of the Saro-Wiwa, his Ogoni people, the era and its challenges; Nnimo Bassey in the book boldly admitted that he was a student of the Saro-Wiwian School. “…Saro-Wiwa challenged me as a fledging writer who thought I would find a niche as a poet and short story writer. His pioneering work in building a virile environmental justice movement as well as the rights of minorities in Nigeria remains outstanding and continues to inspire campaigners around the world.”

    In the introductory section of the book, Helen Fallon, the Deputy Librarian at the NUI wrote the article, “The Saro-Wiwa Collection at the Library, National University of Ireland Maynooth.” (Page 3-13). While Ide Corley, whose expertise in the areas of “Postcolonial and World literatures,” Irish, African Literatures and struggles for modern African identity is outstanding. She wrote an article in the book, which runs from page 15-30, “Ken Saro-Wiwa and West African Literature; the Politics of Language.” And Laurence Cox, a specialist in social movements theorization and praxis, wrote, “Ken Saro-Wiwa in Political Context; Social Movements in the Niger Delta”( Page 31-38). Expectedly, the above scholars explicated the Saro-Wiwa phenomenon, its merits and demerits and the post-Saro-Wiwa’s epoch in the Niger Delta.

    Saro-Wiwa belongs to the Post-colonial Nigerian writers who view literature as a tool for consciousness nurturing and mobilization to confront problems of society. This is demonstrated even in his letters and poems in the book. The book exposes Saro-Wiwa as an archetypal soldier of the pen. Writers whether in the global south or north are just the same. Louise Purwin Zobel and Jacqueline Harmon Butler, both famed travel writers and academics, in their book, Travel Writer’s Handbook (2007) warned old, new or aspiring writers. “Writing is a public profession. You reveal so much of yourself. You may be writing about somebody quite different in a setting far away, but there’s always a great deal of you in the story. Your secrets, your mistakes are there for the world to see,” (Travel Writer’s Handbook) (page 284).

    Silence would be Treason shows that Saro-Wiwa lived as a writer in the Zobel and Butler’s categorization. He knew that what the secrets he was exchanging with her friend and comrade, Majella McCarron would be made public a day. From his tortuous military detention, he shared his secrets about the Ogoni cause, his family, friends and foes and his passion for writing.

    The letters start from page 46 and end on page 131, while the poems start from page 134 and end on page 162. The first letter dated 20th October, 1993 was virtually a response to Majella’s earlier letter. Saro-Wiwa was thanking her for mobilizing grants to help his poor Ogoni villagers when they were attacked. “Thanks for your note. I’m really quite happy to have EC (European Commission) help pass through the Catholic Church. You’ve all been supportive and MOSOP will be right glad to have such friends or supervisors”, he wrote on page 46.

    From page 54, one sees the real anguish of Saro-Wiwa in deplorable military custody. On Saturday, 21st May, 1994, four chiefs from the Gokana Kingdom of the Ogoni nation were murdered at Giokoo community, the traditional home of the Gokana people. Saro-Wiwa and others were promptly arrested as the masterminds. In the letters, Saro-Wiwa stated explicitly his innocence of the allegation of murders. There was no evidence of Saro-Wiwa’s direct or indirect involvement in the murders of the chiefs which he had some relations with. In the third letter on page 54, he lamented about his condition. “My current detention is sheer torture. I’m a private prisoner of the Lt. Col. Komo and his Internal Security Task Force”.

    Komo was the Military Administrator of Rivers State, who from the letters, was posted to the state to “pacify” the Ogoni. While, the Rivers State Internal Security Task Force (RSISTF) was headed by Major Paul Okuntimo. In the book, Saro-Wiwa tagged Okuntimo, “the sadist” because of the beating of famous British ecologist, Nick Aston of Jones, (page 66). In page 86, the 15th letter to Majella dated 27th October, 1994, he described Okuntimo again as “Commander of the Ogoni murder squad.” In September, Saro-Wiwa informed that as a new person, Major Obi Umahi took over as the head of the RSISTF and continued the bloodletting from where his successor stopped. Apart from Ogoniland, the RSISTF also committed violence and extra-judicial killings in place like Etche Local Government Area and other places in the state. But their killings and violence spree was more in Ogoniland than any other place.

    In later part of that third letter in page 55, Saro-Wiwa told us again that he knew the consequences of his nonviolence struggle. “I am not worried for myself. When I undertook to confront Shell and the Nigerian establishment, I signed my death warrant, so to speak. At 52, I think I’ve served my time and, come to face it, I’ve lived a charmed life. A few more books, maybe, & the opportunity to assist others would have been welcome. But it’s okay,” he said. In page 117, offended by the unbearable condition in detention, sought for martyrdom for the sake of his people, “… have always recognised that my cause could lead to death”, he said.

    In same letter above, Saro-Wiwa reinforced his guiltlessness and blamed the murders on the tyrannical state under General Sani Abacha “I even suspect that Kobani and others were murdered by the security agencies in order to justify some of the reports that had been submitted by the security people in support of the Constitutional Conference. We (Ledum Mitee and I) have met soldiers who are prepared, if they have the protection, to talk about what instructions they had, who looted what, who killed whom,” he said (page 88). He re-defined what the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), the organization he founded was all about. “Of course, I and MOSOP had nothing to do with the death of the 4 gentlemen. We are struggling for justice, not for power” Here again, Saro-Wiwa pointedly accused Komo of complicity in the murders of the chiefs. “Komo has just succeeded in mask the government’s role in the unfortunate and brutal deaths”.

    Though such custody Saro-Wiwa was dumped into wasn’t a good place to be, but it afforded him the opportunity to write and read copiously. In letter 16(page 11), he took solace in what the comrades before him had suffered. “Yes, I have everything to be thankful for, and do not forget that I’ve been here only 23 weeks now. Mandela and Walter Sisulu were there for 26/27 years. How can I complain?” He also lamented the lack of culture of writing among his Ogoni people and others.

    In three places in the book – page 59, 111 and 113 respectively, mention were made of a book which we have not seen or heard about. In page 59, he said, “…somehow, I’m finding a lot of activity – reading and writing. I’ve now completed a volume of short stories. I’ve actually written five of the stories before now. I’ve done 5 more & gotten a book.” The editors alleged that it might be “A Kind of Festival and Other Stories”. Saro-Wiwa also said, “I start on re-writing the novel I lost in 1992 at the end of next week.” The editors’ guessed again, it may be another book, Lemona’s Tale. In letter 23, page 111, he wrote; “However, I hope to complete the diary of my first detention and to send it off to the U.K. in the hope that I might find a publisher. Also a collection of short stories, A Kind of Festival and Other Stories which I believe to be the best of the three collections I’ve done so far.” Again, in page 113, “…I’ve completed the corrections on my latest short story collection A Kind of Festival and Other Stories. I think this collection my best so far. I’II be sending both to junior Ken & asking him to see if he can get a publisher in the U.K.”

    On page 84 (letter 14) Saro-Wiwa stated clearly that he was not going into partisan politics, rather expanding the Ogoni struggle to other parts of the Niger Delta. He outlined what he was struggling as “ERECTISM – ethnic autonomy, resource and environmental control.” In same page, Saro-Wiwa eulogised Oronto Natei Douglas, “Oronto is a lawyer and committed to the Niger Delta – his home is one of the six places studied.” Not only Oronto, he also praised progressive Yoruba leaders and independent press and non-governmental organizations (NGOs)( page 100). “Locally, the support of the non-governmental press has been tremendous. And Yoruba leaders meeting on August 31 (1994) sent solidarity messages to the Ogoni and called for my release” (Page 72).

    Icons like Wole Soyinka, the late Claude Ake and the late British Anita Roddick, the late Gani Fawehinmi were lavishly praised by Saro-Wiwa (see pages 61,72,90,108,106,114,117 and 130). He also mentioned the roles of other defence lawyers, Femi Falana, Olisa Agbakobar and his younger brother, Owens Wiwa (pages 106 and 114). He also praised Mairead Corrigan, the Northern Ireland peace activist award winner (page 123), the Irish and their organisations like Trocaire( page 106) and the Ogoni Solidarity Ireland(page 123). Remember that Saro-Wiwa had said he drew some of his inspiration from the Irish Renaissance of the Swiftian period.

    Even in prison, Saro-Wiwa’s undying love for his suffering Ogoni people was demonstrated. From there, he deployed his diminishing financial resources to support them – especially his comrades who were either in detention, underground or haunted – page 109. On page 130, he vowed, “I am in good spirits, expecting the worst as usual, but hopeful for the best.” According to the book, Saro-Wiwa’s deep distrust in the Nigerian judiciary, contrary to his parent’s expectation is exposed. “My parents are always in court, and my father believes that I will be free at the end of the case. I’ve tried very hard to dampen his optimism but the old man won’t budge. I just hope he does not get a rude shock” (Page 130). On page 88 (letter 15) Saro-Wiwa warned, “Don’t expect anything from the court. The matter is political, and the military do not care for the judicial system”,( page 87).

    Saro-Wiwa strongly believed that the intervention of the West would save the situation of the Ogoni. He specifically appealed to the American President Jimmy Carter to intervene in the Ogoni situation as well as Western embassies in Nigeria. He took a swipe at the military dictatorship and called on the European Union (EU) and the Americans to kick the military out if any meaningful development would take place in Nigeria. They couldn’t save Ken Saro-Wiwa. He was hanged by Abacha on 10th November, 1995. But General Abacha, the maximum head of the Nigerian establishment was eventually kicked out as Saro-Wiwa requested. He reportedly died of “cardiac arrest”. Professor Charles R. Larson, in his ground-breaking book, The Ordeal of the African Writer (2001) on page 140, lampooned the international system Saro-Wiwa believed so much in. “Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa’s execution by hanging on 10 November 1995 was a travesty of justice, a mockery of human rights and a failure of international diplomacy”.

    From page 133-162 are the 28 poems. In the collection, Saro-Wiwa poeticised about the Ogoni struggle-”Around the drooping neck of a shell-shocked land”- page 143. The sweeping solidarity for the Ogoni struggle, “On the walls of history”- page 142. His love of great women like Anita Roddick, “I would sing your song”- page 136 and Majella McCarron, “—- To a journey of faith/— For the voiceless of the earth!/— And strange lands, we pour fourth/— Of your Ogoni, my Fermangh”, page 137. He complained about “the agony of trees dying—of dying children” (page 143) and poor Ogoni women, “Her wretched soul destroyed”- line 4 on page 150. He satirized about prison condition in the poem, “Prison Song”- “Bedbugs, fleas and insects/—— I’m reminded of this crude place/Shared with unusual inmates”- page 140.

     

    Saro-Wiwa, even when walking to his grave didn’t spare military dictatorship- “Makes Babangidance such a hit!” (line 12 in page 148). Babangidance, derived from the name of Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, Nigeria’s former military ruler becomes a metaphor for dictatorship. He wrote of his love for his children, both male and female. It pervades both the letters and poems. But deeper one for the females- Zina and her sisters ( Singto, Adele, Noo) “which you and your kids must ponder”- page 151. Back to the letters, Saro-Wiwa was happy that, “– I have a real team of capable women, if they do not meet and get enslaved by some mean men!”

    The book, Silence Would be Treason – Last Writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa, is a great book. It revives and supplements the fading memories of actors and actresses like us (not spectators) during the gloomy days. It needs to be read carefully with an open mind. The book contains correct information about the hey days of the Ogoni struggle, its victories, failures, betrayals and travails in the naked face of highly organized state/corporate violence and conspiracies against a marginalised and embittered people of the eastern Niger Delta belt in Nigeria.

     

    *Naagbanton, lives in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital

     

     

  • MOSOP demands justice for Saro-Wiwa, others

    •Asks govt to implement UNEP report

    The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) has stated that Ogoni remains a forgotten economic wasteland, ravaged by deepening poverty and socio-economic exclusion.

    It called on the federal government to take immediate steps to implement the recommendations contained in the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report on Ogoniland, despite the fact that it has set up the Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Programme (HYPREP). The movement said it might be forced to take the case to the international community.

    The umbrella organisation of Ogoni people also demanded a judicial inquiry into the killing of Ogoni-4 and justice for Ogoni-13, as well as the other victims of the repression of the 1990s.

    The Chairman of MOSOP Provisional Council, Prof. Ben Naanen, stated this yesterday at Bori, the traditional headquarters of Ogoniland and the seat of Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State, during the 17th remembrance of the hanging of the renowned environmentalist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and other Ogoni activists.

    Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists were hanged on November 10, 1995 at the Port Harcourt Prisons, during the regime of the late General Sani Abacha, for their alleged roles in the murder of the Ogoni-4, while on May 27, 1994, four prominent leaders of MOSOP were brutally murdered at a gathering at Giokoo-Ogoni in Gokana LGA of Rivers State.

    The Anglo/Dutch oil giant, the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), was chased out of Ogoniland in 1993 and yet to return, with the Ogoni people vowing that the oil firm would never be allowed into the four Ogoni LGAs of Khana, Gokana, Tai and Eleme.

    Naanen, who is also of the University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT), said in his thought-provoking address at the remembrance service, that the event was for all who gave their lives to the Ogoni struggle.

    The UNEP report on Ogoniland’s environmental assessment was issued on Aug 4, 2011 and received by President Goodluck Jonathan in Abuja on August 12, 2011, but the recommendations are yet to be implemented, while the Federal Government decided to set up HYPREP, to cater for all Niger Delta communities with similar problems as Ogoniland.

    MOSOP said: “The Ogoni struggle is one written in flesh and blood. It is the story of a people who demanded accountability for their environment, after decades of oil production, in which about the main reward they received was a devastated environment and destruction of their traditional livelihood.

    “It is the story of a marginalised people, who wanted to take their destiny in their own hands. It is about a people who wanted freedom and to improve their lives, by having control of their local affairs, while remaining an integral part of the Nigerian nationhood.

    “It is the story of people who suffered undeserved discrimination and wanted to recover their lost dignity and respect. One may ask what the Ogoni people have gained from the supreme sacrifice of these martyrs. The people have largely recovered their dignity and respect, but hardly anything much beyond that. The area remains a forgotten economic wasteland, ravaged by deepening poverty and socio-economic exclusion. Oil-related environmental devastation remains a sordid and conspicuous feature of Ogoniland.”

    The umbrella organisation of Ogoni people also stated that the judicial process that produced the gruesome verdict, which led to the hanging of Saro-Wiwa and eight others, had been variously described as “show trial”, “unfair trial” and “politically-motivated trial”.

    It noted that the then British Prime Minister, John Major, called it “judicial murder.”

    MOSOP reiterated that in the period between the killings at Giokoo and the executions of November 10, 1995, Ogoni was subjected to a reign of terror, in which significant number of innocent people were killed or tortured by the authorities and communities burnt down, all in the attempt to destroy the Ogoni revolution.

    It said: “MOSOP is calling on the Nigerian Government to take immediate steps to implement the UNEP report, the pre-emptive set up of HYPREP notwithstanding. The Ogoni people want to see action.

    The Ogoni umbrella organisation also stated that the martyrs gave their lives, so that Ogoni could be a model of accountable leadership.

    It added that as MOSOP would be preparing for its elections, it called on all Ogoni people, who considered themselves qualified for the challenge of leadership, to step forward and present themselves for the people’s verdict.