Tuesday 10 November 2020

Remembering Ken Saro-Wiwa and Ogoni activists executed for nonviolent resistance to destruction of Indigenous lands.

 
 
On 10 Nov 1995 Ken Saro-Wiwa, Ogoni indigenous author and activist, was executed by hanging by the military government of Sani Abacha in Nigeriahanged by the Nigerian state for daring to resist Royal Dutch Shell, alongside eight other Ogoni activists Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel, and John Kpuine. They had organised nonviolent resistance to destruction of Indigenous lands. Their deaths sparked an international outcry that lingers to this day.
Shell had been waging a lethal ecological war in Ogoni land since 1958 when it first discovered oil reserves in the area. The oil exploitation has been concentrated in the coastal plains terraces to the north of the Niger delta, which is home to the Ogoni people. 
More than 900 million barrels of oil of estimated value 30 billion US dollars have been mined from the area since the discovery of the oil reserves. 96 oil wells connected five oilfields which were mostly operated by Shell and where gas has been flared twenty-four hours a day for more than thirty-five years. Between 1976 and 1991, over two million barrels of oil polluted Ogoniland in 2,976 separate oil spills. 
In 1990 the Ogoni began to powerfully resist the destructive intervention of the oil industry and the Nigerian dictatorship in their home, where despite of the stupendous oil and gas wealth of their land, they were confronted with environmental degradation, political marginalization, economic strangulations particularly marked by an unemployment rate of over 70 percent, slavery, and possible extinction. What became known to as the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), with Ken Saro Wiwa as its leader, they issued the Ogoni Bill of Rights (OBR) in which they demanded ; the right to self-determination as a distinct people in the Nigerian Federation;
adequate representation as of right in all Nigerian national institutions;
 the right to use a fair proportion of the economic resources of their land for their development and  the right to control their environment.
 This was followed by the largest peaceful protest against a single corporation in to this date, in which 300,000 Ogoni people marched against Shell’s ecological war in January 1993. 
The protest was followed by an extremely violent crack down on the movement by the Nigerian government and Shell whereby over 1,000 Ogoni people were murdered and 30,000 people displaced.
Ken Saro Wiwa was born in 1941 as the eldest son in an Ogoni family. After leaving university he pursued an academic career and became the most outspoken environmental activist in the Niger Delta decrying the devastation of the land, air and water at the hands of rich corporations and complicit governmental authorities.
He was a writer, artist, journalist, and television producer and became the President of the Association of Nigerian Authors  for three years until 1991, when he decided to devote himself entirely to the nonviolent struggles of his fellow Ogoni people.
He chose to fight using nonviolent resistance techniques such as poetry, prose and peaceful protest. Saro-Wiwa was able to mobilize the people of the Niger Delta to push for adequate representation and the preservation of their homeland, which was continuing to be destroyed by oil exploitation.
In 1994, Saro-Wiwa was given the Right Livelihood Award, often called the “alternative Nobel Prize”, along with three other environmental activists. The following year he was given the Goldman Environmental Foundation of California prize.  It didn’t take long before the Nigerian government felt their economic interest in oil exploitation was being threatened by the growing movement of Saro-Wiwa and his followers.
In May 1994, a meeting took place which broke out in violent confrontation, and four of the elders were killed. Even though Saro-Wiwa had been barred from attending the meeting, he and 8 other Ogoni leaders were held responsible and arrested. A trial took place, though independent and international witnesses claim the various circumstances surrounding the proceedings strayed from the laws outlined in the Nigerian Constitution and international human rights law. Accused of murder and without legal counsel nor right to appeal, Saro-Wiwa and the other 8 Ogoni leaders, were hanged on November 10th, 1995.
In the years that  have passed since then  despite continueous protests, no justice has been served to the Ogoni people and neocolonial violence persists! While oil production has ceased, pipelines operated by Shell still traverse the land, creeks and waterways. Leakages – caused by corroded pipelines as well as bandits – mean that the area is still plagued by oil spills to this date. The Nigerian Government officially launched a clean-up programme in Ogoniland  however, communities are still waiting for emergency measures to be taken and clean-up to begin. 
While Shell admitted that its oil operations have polluted large areas of the Niger Delta it resists charges of complicity in human rights abuses. However, confidential memos, faxes, witness statements and other documents released in 2009, clearly showed the company regularly paid the military to stop the peaceful protest movement MOSOP against the pollution, even helping to plan raids on villages suspected of opposing the company.
To this day, despite facts that tie Shell to their murders and to the continuing abuse of the Ogoni people, Shell still denies culpability and continues to drill for oil in Nigeria.Moreover, Shell continues to undermine democracy and feed into corruption in the country by engaging in rigged trade deals that served business’ interests rather than the welfare of the people. "Shell must not get away with this," said Osai Ojigho, director of Amnesty International Nigeria."We will continue to fight until every last trace of oil is removed from Ogoniland."
Ken Saro-Wiwa once said: "I am more dangerous dead" — a quote that remains true all  these years after his death. Activists in Nigeria  continue to  expose economic inequality and  at the same time, both challenge not only commitments to corporate responsibility, but also the fundamentals of corporate purpose.This day will ever be remembered now and always as a day, the innocent blood of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his fellow activists were shed.

"Dance your anger and your joys,
Dance the military guns to silence,
Dance oppression and injustice to death,
Dance my people,
For we have seen tomorrow
And there is an Ogoni star in the sky."

— Ken Saro Wiwa - Hung for opposing Shell

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