“ I have perceived a great injustice being done to this people and as a writer , I have decided that I am going to fight. I want justice for the Ogoni people, I want self determination for the Ogoni people, I want autonomy for the Ogoni people ” –Ken Saro Wiwa
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And Ken Saro Wiwa proceeded to fight. He deployed his intellectual and literary talents into the fight of seeking justice for the Ogoni and the rest of the oppressed Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Ken wrote books, newspaper articles, produced documentaries , in which he detailed the environmental degradation of the Niger Delta and the criminal exploitation of its peoples. He made presentations at international fora, including the United Nations.
At home in Ogoni, Ken mobilized the Ogoni people for the battle ahead; through community rallies ‘ and enlightenment campaigns. In mobilizing the people Ken also prepared them for the trials and travails of the struggle. But he hastened to admonished them not to be scared , even as he predicted his own fate and declared his willingness to give up his life for the emancipation of his people. He said “ when you are asking for the right of a people you cannot begin to wonder whether you are going to be killed or be sent to jail. Right is right and it must be fought for”.
True to his prediction, Ken was arrested and jailed several times and eventually hanged on November 10, 1995, alongside 8 of his fellow Ogoni campaigners. It is instructive to note that the reason Ken was killed was to prevent the MOSOP initiative from being replicated in other parts of the Niger Delta. In an interview with Newsweek’s Joshua Hammer, Ken remarked “ the government wants to disgrace and humiliate me, terrorize the Ogoni and any of the intellectuals who might want to copy me, and divert attention from the struggles and the Ogoni people and stop other oil –rich areas from protesting the Ogoni way”. ( NewsWeek, May 29,1995).
The Nigerian ruling cabal and their slick allies, the transnational oil corporations knew all along that Ken was right- that he had a good case against them-that the operational methods of the oil companies were ( are) reckless-terrorizes both the environment and the people. But they wouldn’t concede . Ken himself remarked that Shell reasoned that it was cheaper to poison the Ogoni people than to operate in an environmentally friendly manner.
So rather than facing reality and cleaning up their acts, they resolved to blackmail Ken and take him out. With Ken out of the way, the slick allies concluded it was time to get back to business, as usual. But they were mistaken, as the murder of Ken and eight of his Ogoni compatriots outraged the civilized world and ignited the flame in the Niger Delta. And soon the struggle in some parts of the Niger Delta ,took the dimension the slick allies dictated--armed struggle.
However, even after the Nigerian government have succeeded in killing Ken Saro Wiwa they could not stop his message from spreading to other parts of the Niger Delta.Admittedly, the murder of Ken paralyzed the struggle in Ogoni but other parts of the Niger Delta, notably the Ijaws, to whom the Ogonis must be eternally grateful, rose to the occasion .
In what looks like the vindication of Ken Saro-Wiwa , the Nigerian government recently announced steps aimed at making some concessions to the Niger Delta region. According to reports, the National Assembly has been asked to pass legislation allowing oil producing communities ten percent shares in the joint venture operations. Also a rash of projects have been planned for the oil producing states. These include road projects and other infrastructure . Even if this marginal concessions are a far cry from what the peoples of the Niger Delta are demanding, the gesture is a marked departure from the intransigent attitude of the Nigerian authorities, in the past.
However, it is hard to tell what the Nigerian government is up to. The move by the government coming on the heels of the so-called amnesty granted to the “militants” as reported by a national daily , seems more tactical than a genuine desire to right the generational wrongs that have been done to the peoples of the region. The move by the Nigerian government is suspected to be a ploy to boost oil production in the region, as the activities of the “militants” have drastically reduced production outputs in the recent past. So the Nigerian government is only concerned with what happens to oil production in the Niger Delta, not the plights of the people.
In any case, it is doubtful if the National Assembly dominated by members from the majority ethnic groups who do not produce oil, would vote for the bill that would give the Niger Delta region some form of ownership of their oil resource. So far, the government have been offering palliatives , not cures to the Niger Delta problem. But until cures like self determination and resource control are found, the Niger Delta crisis will continue to fester and ultimately threaten the corporate existence of the country.
Now, the government is pressuring the Ogoni people to allow Shell back to their abandoned oilfields in the area. We are getting used to this and would naturally not blink an eye. The only problem is that today we have no leadership in Ogoni. Those who are parading themselves as leaders are not credible. They are distrusted by the people. But make no mistake, the people are still capable of taking care of the situation. To the real Ogonis. Shell’s case is closed. The persona non grata status of Shell in Ogoni is irrevocable. However, whenever the Nigerian government is ready to present an operator that is acceptable to the Ogoni people our minimum preconditions for resumption of oil production would be an Ogoni State, resource control, among others.
November 10 anniversaries should not only be marked as a yearly ritual as it now appears to be the case. It should be a day for sober reflection- on one of the worst cases of injustice –of the barbarism exhibited by the Nigerian government against its own citizens-of how far the bloodlust of the transnational oil corporations can go , in crushing perceived opposition to their inhuman operations in Third World countries.
November 10, should be a day of rededication and resolve-a resolve never to let the sacrifice of our fallen heroes be in vain. There should be a resolve to fight relentlessly until justice is done to the memory of those who have gone and those Ogonis who are still around, feeling the pangs of marginalization, exploitation and enslavement. It should be a day for the Ogoni and the rest of the Niger Delta region to resolve to stop the open robbery of our petroleum oil resource.
I am amazed at how soon the Ogoni people, even MOSOP activists, seem to have forgotten what we went through. However, the struggle which Ken Saro Wiwa gave his all and eventually paid the supreme price cannot be said to be alive today. The struggle is in comatose . It has been deliberately sabotaged by a privileged and unconscionable few for whom the struggle has become a gold mine, as they mortgage the hope and aspirations of our people for personal enrichment.
The memories of November 10, 1995-memories of innocent men being hanged in the gallows, just for demanding for the rights of their oppressed people, should stir the Ogoni to seek revenge. Yes, revenge- no apologies. The Nigerian state and Shell must be made to pay for the cold-blooded murder of the Ogoni Nine, the Ogoni 4 and unnamed thousands who were killed in the course of the struggle.
For it is delusional for anyone to begin to talk of reconciliation in the midst of injustice. At least, the architects of the Ogoni pacification project should accept responsibility for the atrocities they committed in Ogoni. There would be no closure in these issues until justice is seen to have been done. And our commitment to seek justice for the Ogoni will not waiver .Those who are abandoning the struggle at this time when injustice still stalks the Nigerian landscape are not doing justice to the memory of Ken Saro Wiwa who died fighting injustice, so Ogoni shall be free.
