THE Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) is commencing non-violent actions, with Saturday’s expiration of the ultimatum given to the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan to fully implement the recommendations contained in the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report on Ogoniland.
The umbrella organisation of Ogoni people also accused the Federal Government of practising genocide against the peace-loving people.
The President of MOSOP, Legborsi Saro Pyagbara, spoke in Bori, the traditional headquarters of Ogoni people and seat of Khana LGA of Rivers State, at the 18th anniversary of the hanging of a renowned environmentalist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and other Ogoni activists.
Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists were hanged at Port Harcourt Prisons on November 10, 1995, during the regime of the late Gen. Sani Abacha, while the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) was sent packing from Ogoniland in 1993 and yet to return.
The UNEP report was released on August 4, 2011 and submitted to President Jonathan in Abuja on August 11 of the same year, but yet to be implemented.
Pyagbara stated that the 18th anniversary was to honour the heroes of Ogoni struggle: Saro-Wiwa, John Kpuinen, Chief Edward Kobani, Chief Albert Badey, Chief S.N. Orage, Dr. Barinem Kiobel, Chief T.B.Orage, Nordu Eawo, Paul Levura, Saturday Dobee, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Daniel Gbokoo and Dr. Garrick B. Leton.
MOSOP said: “On August 4, 2011, UNEP released the report of its multi-year study of the Ogoni environment, which had presented in some scientific detail, the destruction of the Ogoni environment and the unprecedented pollution of the Ogoni water system.
“The stunning silence of the Nigerian government two years and some months after the release of the report had confirmed to us that the government, as alleged by our heroes some years ago, had been practising the crime of genocide against the Ogoni people.
“This government wants us to continue to drink the poisoned water and die. This government wants us to continue to breathe the poisoned air and die and this government wants us to continue to live on the polluted lands and die.
“The Dr. Goodluck Jonathan administration is presiding over the final liquidation of the Ogoni nationality and we would not accept it. As the ultimatum we issued to the Nigerian government expired yesterday (Saturday), in the coming days ahead, we invite you to join us as we embark on series of non-violent actions to demonstrate our total disapproval of the government’s handling of the implementation of the report of the environmental study of Ogoniland.
“We wish to also inform you that we would be invoking the provisions of the Genocide Convention against the Nigerian government. We must all be ready to challenge those who are daily erecting barriers to our sense of common humanity and equality and this is the time.”
The Ogoni umbrella organisation also reiterated that a few months ago, it launched the Ogoni Project 2015, which it said called on the political parties and other sympathetic groups in the country to give the Ogoni people the opportunity to produce the next governor of Rivers State.
After a thorough analysis of the current situation in Rivers state, particularly on the issue of political marginalisation, which it described as one of the issues for which their leaders paid the supreme price, MOSOP stated that it decided to launch this campaign to reduce the level of Ogoni marginalisation in Rivers state, pending when the people would have their own state.
MOSOP said: “The occasion of this anniversary is also an opportunity to remind our politicians and political office holders that during this period, regardless of political affiliations, we must do everything within our powers to ensure that we strive for unity and peace among our people.
“The bickering and divisions among the political class must end for the common good of the Ogoni people. The spirit of Ogoni, the entire Ogoni people and our heroes that we remember today (yesterday) expect the political leaders to demonstrate that they stand for the overriding interest of the Ogoni people, by speaking up for them and joining them in their campaigns.
“This remembrance provides us with yet another unique opportunity to unite in ways that we have never before. We may disagree sometimes over strategies and views, but there is no question that we should be able to unite on the most crucial points that drove our fallen colleagues to draw up the Ogoni Bill of Rights.”
The Ogoni umbrella organisation also urged the marginalised people in the four Rivers LGAs of Khana, Gokana, Tai and Eleme, to identify and recommit themselves to the core values for which their heroes laid down their lives.
While also speaking, the representative of the Rivers Southeast Senatorial District, Magnus Ngei Abe, described the non-implementation of the recommendations contained in the UNEP report, as an act of wickedness against the people of Ogoni by the Jonathan’s administration.
Abe revealed that all the efforts made by the elected representatives of the people of Ogoni to get the Federal Government to implement the UNEP report had not been successful.
The Senator said: “I have said it before and I want to repeat it here that the non-implementation of UNEP report is nothing other than wickedness on the part of the Federal Government. I want to acknowledge the contributions of all our heroes, those that marched, those that were killed, those that shouted, those that wept, those that carried placards.
“Before now, when I talked, I was saying it was the Rivers state government that made the UNEP report possible, but I have come to realise that that is not entirely correct. We worked the physical work as at the time when the UNEP report was being put together, but without the struggle of all our heroes past, the Federal Government would not have even called UNEP to come and do anything in Ogoniland. So, every Ogoni person has contributed to the realisation of the UNEP report.
“What has happened to the report? Before UNEP began its assignment, the late President Umaru Yar’Adua called us to a meeting in Government House, Port Harcourt and we agreed and gave a condition that we would not allow the Federal Government to come and do a study for the sake of a study, that we would write an undertaking that once the report was out, it would be implemented.
“President Yar’Adua directed the then Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) to write the letter. One week after the meeting, the Federal Government wrote to promise Ogoni people that the report would be implemented once it was ready.”
Abe also lamented that when the UNEP report was eventually released, Yar’Adua had died, but it was submitted to Jonathan, without any action taken on it for over two years, which he described as very unfortunate.
a peaceful way of prodding the government into dialogue and action. The Bill noted that although crude oil had been extracted from Ogoniland from 1958 they had received nothing in return.
“A total clean up of Ogoni land will take a life time or about thirty years at the least. That is the length of time UNEP estimates it would require to clean up the water bodies in the territory. And it would require an additional five (5) years to clean up the land. How is that a lifetime? Well, life expectancy in the Niger Delta stands at approximately forty-one years.
“At the eve of the first anniversary of the presentation of the UNEP report, the Federal Government hurriedly cobbled up an outfit incongruously named Hydrocarbons Pollution Restoration Project (HYPREP). The project was set up basically to hoodwink the Ogoni people into thinking that action was being taken to implement the UNEP report. A year after the setting up of HYPREP under the Ministry of Petroleum Resources – a major polluter of Ogoni land – the only visible acts of implementation of the UNEP report has been the planting of sign posts at some places informing the people that their environment is contaminated and that they should keep off. You could almost laugh, but this is sad and serious. Keep off your environment! No options given. The people still drink the polluted waters and farm the polluted lands. Seafood is still being scrounged from the polluted waters and community people still process their foods in the crude-coated creeks.”
On October 4, the people vowed to compel the Federal Government to implement the report . At a sensitisation rally in Baen, Khana Local Government Area of the State, the President of KAGOTE, made up of Khana, Gokana Tai and Eleme Local Government Areas, Dr. Peter Medee, said: “Whether the Federal Government likes it or not, we will force them through legal means to implement the recommendations of UNEP on Ogoni environment, ” adding “What is the Federal Government doing, two years after the report was submitted? Federal Government ignored the report so that Ogoni people will all die.
“We will not support any government that is wishing the people of Ogoni death. The minister of Petroleum, Deizani Alison-Madueke, has decided to torment the people of Ogoni. Tell her that if UNEP report is not implemented, she will fail.”
He said the Ogoni people would continue to support the administration of Governor Rotimi Amaechi and everything that will lift Ogoniland higher. “We are ready to fight for Amaechi because he is fighting the cause of the Ogoni 2015 project and bringing development to us,” he said. . The Public Relations Officer, Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), Legborsi Esaen, declared that no amount of threat would stop the people of Ogoni ethnic nationality from producing the next governor of the state.
“We have spoken; it is project 2015 and no going back on that. We are used to security intimidation but we are not going back on 2015,” he said.
The Deputy National President, Nigeria Civil Service Union (NCSU), Menele Nzidee, said those opposed to the administration of Governor Rotimi Amaechi were doing so because of the governor’s resolve to have an Ogoni as a successor come 2015.
Rivers State Commissioner for Works, Chief Victor Giadom, said construction work would soon commence on the Saakpenwa-Bori-Kono road project, which was recently awarded by the Amaechi-led administration. He added that the present administration in the state was committed to ensuring that development gets to the nooks and crannies of Ogoni land.
Chairman of Khana Local Government Area, Gregory Nwidam, in an earlier remarks, said the rally was to sensitise the people of Khana on government programmes, insisting that elected officers from Ogoniland have not failed the people as he assured that they will continue to stand by the administration of Amaechi in the state.
