May-June 2004:
A Martyr for Peace in Nigeria
Why the U.S. Keeps Invading Haiti
Forecast: Not So Drafty
David Dellinger, 1915-2004
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Ken Saro-Wiwa
A Martyr for Peace in Nigeria

By Judith Atiri
Photos by Greenpeace

t is almost 10 years since the Ogoni playwright, environmental activist and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Ken Saro-Wiwa was executed by the Nigerian military government. Yet the nonviolent movement that he founded against the oil companies and the Nigerian government continues to protest the degradation of the Ogonis’ environment and to demand that the Ogoni share in the revenues from their land. Meanwhile, the Niger Delta peoples have suffered more economic and political marginalization.

The Nigerian economy is oil dependent, with 97.7 percent of its national revenue from the sale of crude oil found in the Niger Delta area, home of the Ogoni people (see below). The region has been ravaged by oil companies, with Shell Oil being the main culprit. These groups have been protesting the policies of the oil companies and the practices of the Nigerian government since the 1950s without having any real impact. Many lives have been lost in the struggle against political marginalization and environmental destruction that is the trademark of Shell. The Ogonis are extremely poor, have no social amenities, pipe-borne water, electricity, hospitals or schools, and an unemployment rate of more than 70 percent. They have felt powerless, as an ethnic minority group, to do anything to alleviate their condition.

Ken Saro-Wiwa in action.

Community to Community
In 1990, Ken Saro-Wiwa, President of the Ethnic Minority Rights Organization of Africa and founder of MOSOP, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, came on the scene. He strongly believed that there were constructive, effective ways to protest to the government and to Shell, methods that would gain the Ogoni a hearing and have an impact on the status quo. Saro-Wiwa was a strong advocate of nonviolence, had experience with mass mobilization and organizing and was also a formidable public speaker. With the support of a few key people in the Ogoni community, he was able to rally the people together. He went from community to community, interviewing and conversing with the people about what their needs were and what they would like to see done.

Saro-Wiwa embarked on a program of educating the masses on their rights as an ethnic group within Nigeria and on how they should carry out the struggle nonviolently. Under the leadership of MOSOP, the Ogonis went on a campaign for self-determination. They prepared a Bill of Rights, and their demands were clear: political autonomy in the Nigerian Federation; an end to marginalization from political power; reparations from Shell and the federal government for the environmental degradation and decimation of their sources of livelihood; and fairer allocation of oil revenues.

Saro-Wiwa’s legacy: Ogoni protesters..

MOSOP presented its Bill of Rights to the government of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. Babangida was very diplomatic, charming and cunning and was able to keep the Ogonis coming and going, by having dialogues with them without actually implementing any changes. He had a way of making the Nigerians feel that they were under a democratic government and that their opinions were actually being considered.

When MOSOP saw that it was making no headway with the government, it approached Shell directly with a list of demands and organized several rallies and peaceful demonstrations. Notable was the celebration of the U.N. Year of the World’s Indigenous Population: MOSOP held an Ogoni Day March, and about 300,000 Ogonis came out and demonstrated nonviolently against the policies of the government and Shell Oil. It was remarkable that in such a big demonstration there was neither violence nor vandalism. Usually during demonstrations, Shell would invite the Nigerian Army in to break the protests up and shoot the protesters, burn their houses and terrorize them. MOSOP even launched a successful election boycott, claiming that the Nigerian constitution does not cover Ogoni rights and is therefore not representative of the Ogonis.

As time went on, many people within MOSOP began to feel that the group’s nonviolent approach was not actually effective. The government tried to buy off some MOSOP members, and some left, including four chiefs, who thought that their defection would cripple the organization. On several occasions, Saro-Wiwa and other leaders were thrown into jail or subjected to house arrest. Their passports were seized and they were not allowed to leave the country for conferences and international events.

However, despite the strong governmental opposition they faced, the core members of MOSOP continued their nonviolent approach to the conflict. MOSOP launched an international campaign that clearly articulated the Ogonis’ needs and the basis for the struggle. The campaign garnered the strong support of environmental groups like Greenpeace and NGOs like Amnesty International, to name a few. The Ogoni case was adopted into the League of Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, an NGO based in the Hague.

In 1993, a more militant wing of the group evolved, the National Youth Council of Ogoni People, known as NYCOP, which consisted of men in between the ages of 18 and 40. They were actively resistant to the practices of Shell and the government. The conservative chiefs who had been bribed by the Babangida government to compromise MOSOP referred to NYCOP as Saro-Wiwa’s “private vigilante army.” By this time, the Babangida regime had been replaced by the vicious, murderous regime of Gen. Sanni Abacha, who had no patience with diplomacy. Oil was too important to the economy to be toyed around with. Besides, all the other oil-producing communities in the Niger Delta area were watching to see the government’s reaction to Ogoni demands. If their demands were met, it would lead to a general demand by all the other oil-producing communities for the same consideration.

On May 21, 1994, Saro-Wiwa was scheduled to address a local rally when he was placed under house arrest by the Nigerian police. At the rally, where people awaited him, four prominent Ogoni chiefs were killed and burned in frenzy. The four chiefs were among conservatives who had been bought over by the government, to derail the struggle (It is still not clear who the real instigators were.)

Even though they had not been at the scene, Saro-Wiwa and eight others were arrested for instigating and inciting the people to murder the four chiefs. The next day, without any concrete evidence, the accused nine were thrown into jail, subjected to gross human rights abuses and sentenced to death by hanging. There was no opportunity for them to appeal. On November 10, 1995, to the surprise and shock of the international community, they were summarily executed. The Ogoni community was invaded, villages were burnt, and people were slaughtered. There was a huge flow of refugees into neighboring states such as the Benin Republic, where they were kept in camps. Ogoniland was patrolled night and day by soldiers; roadblocks were set up everywhere, hindering free movement and terrorizing the people left behind.

The Ogoni struggle captured international attention and led to strict sanctions against Nigeria, which was suspended from the British Commonwealth. The United Nations also placed sanctions on Nigeria until it returned to democratic rule. The role that Shell played in the violence against the Ogoni and the executions that followed, along with its historic methods of operation in Nigeria, all led to an international boycott of Shell products.

Saro-Wiwa believed passionately in the Ogoni struggle. He also believed in nonviolence up until his death. In his closing statement to the military tribunal that executed him, he said, “I predict that the denouement of the riddle of the Niger Delta will soon come. The agenda is being set at this trial. Whether the peaceful ways I have favored will prevail depends on what the oppressor decides, what signals it sends out to the waiting public. 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.”

The Ogoni struggle stands as a model and catalyst for the struggles of the Niger Delta peoples. Currently, Nigeria is under the nominally civilian government of former Head of State, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, who is serving his second term as president. (Obasanjo had served as the military Head of State of Nigeria between 1976 and 1979.) His promise to the Niger Delta groups before his election was that he would pay particular attention to the development of the Niger Delta area. He promised to introduce a revenue-sharing plan whereby oil-producing communities would get a percentage of the revenue from crude oil sales.

In his first term, Obasanjo created the Niger Delta Development Commission to be in charge of the development of the Niger Delta communities. There is also a new revenue allocation formula in place, which requires that 13 percent of the profit from the sale of oil-mineral products return to the state from which it was derived. The Niger Delta Bill is unsatisfactory and has gone through several amendments. Its implementation has also been slow, but at last the Nigerian government has acknowledged that the Niger Delta struggles are legitimate and there is a real problem as regards its development. The government has made several useful attempts at dialogue with the people in an effort to come to a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

To date, communities are still engaged in riots, demonstrations and kidnaping oil workers, and the Obasanjo government has sent in the army on several occasions to quell the uprisings. The uprisings have been suppressed for a season, but have re-ignited after a short while, because at the root of the conflict lies the essential struggle for basic human needs.

So the Niger Delta crisis continues, but it is clear that MOSOP has been a positive catalyst in the struggles of the Niger Delta peoples. Following the violence against these communities and the formal and informal executions, there is a split in the ideology of the Ogoni people as to whether nonviolence is really an effective tool in fighting injustice. The remarkable fact after all the years of military rule and repression in Nigeria is the development of a very strong civil society. Several NGOs have sprung up around the country, and the Obasanjo government has had to answer questions about its policies and behavior.

In 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa won the Goldman Environmental prize and was also awarded Sweden’s prestigious Right Livelihood Award, known as an alternative Nobel Peace Prize.

Nigerian-born Judith Atiri is the Administrative Coordinator of the WRL National Office.

Oil and Nigeria

Nigeria has gone through more than 30 years of military rule in the 44 years since it gained independence from British rule. Its political machinery has been continually hijacked by the military, most of whom are from the northern, Hausa/Fulani ethnic group. Due to colonial economics and politics, Nigeria was divided into three main regions—the northern, western and eastern regions, which correspond with the three major ethnic groups, the Hausa, Yoruba and Ibos, respectively.

However, Nigeria actually has between 250 and 400 ethnic groups with distinct languages and culture. On the artificial fabrication on the country, late Elder Statesman Chief Obafemi Awolowo commented, “Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical expression. There are no Nigerians in the same sense as there are English, Welsh or French. The word ‘Nigerian’ is merely a distinctive appellation to distinguish those who live within the boundaries of Nigeria from those who do not.”

Nigeria is a federation and shares power and resources according to landmass and population. This has historically meant that the smaller ethnic groups have been marginalized in the economic and political scheme of things. Specifically examining the cluster of ethnic minority groups in the oil-bearing Niger Delta area of the country, one sees not just economic and political marginalization, but also huge neglect and environmental devastation and destruction.

In the oil-dependent Nigerian economy, 99.7 percent of the national revenue is from the sale of crude oil, nearly half of which goes to the United States; most of the rest goes to five European Union countries. Crude oil is found in the Niger Delta area of the country, but the communities of the area have been bypassed in the allocation of revenue. During the oil boom from 1973 to 1981, Nigeria became a single-resource economy. Over the same period, the government stripped the oil-producing communities of any rights in their lands or in the minerals found therein.

When oil was first discovered in the area in the mid-1950s, so was an abundance of gas. However Nigeria had no use for gas, and the oil companies simply burned it. There are hundreds of gas flares littered all over the Niger Delta; as a consequence, the people of the area have known no dark nights, and many indigenous plants and animals have become extinct. A World Bank study shows that in Nigeria, more than 76 percent of the natural gas produced in the process of petroleum production is flared, the highest rate of gas flaring in the developing world. According to Claude Ake in Defining an Environmental Strategy for the Niger Delta (1995), “The emission of CO2 from gas flaring in Nigeria releases 35 million tons of CO2 a year and 12 million tons of methane, which means that Nigeria’s oil fields contribute more to global warming than the rest of the world together.” In addition, between 1976 and1991, there were almost 3,000 separate oil spills in the area, an average of almost four every week, amounting to about 2.1 million barrels. —J.A.

The Ogoni

Ogoniland is located in Rivers State, which is situated in the southern part of the Niger-Delta region. The Ogoni are among a number of ethnic groups that were all gathered under the umbrella of the Eastern region. The Ogoni population is approximately 500,000, representing only 0.5 percent of Nigeria’s 100 million people. The Ogoni occupy an area of about 40,000 square miles, and their main occupations are farming and fishing. In former times, the fertile Ogoniland was referred to as the breadbasket of Rivers State.

Now, however, it is also the source of more than 900 billion barrels of crude oil, worth over 30 billion dollars to the Nigerian economy. Oil was discovered in Ogoniland in 1958; Ogoni oil now accounts for about 3.86 percent of total oil production in the Rivers State. There are five major oil wells in Ogoniland, owned by the NNPC/Shell joint venture, ELF, and AGIP. There are 95 oil wells hooked to these five flow stations. Shell oil pipe-lines pass above ground, through villages and what were once agricultural lands, rendering the people homeless and with no source of income. The few local people who are employed in these companies are put on a lower salary scale than the workers from outside Nigeria doing the same jobs.

In addition to Shell, there are two other oil refineries, as well as a petro-chemical plant at Eleme, which adds its gas flares and industrial wastes (indiscriminately dumped drilling mud and sludge) to the overall pollution. The National Fertilizer Company of Nigeria is also situated in Ogoniland and is a big culprit in the dumping of toxic wastes in nearby creeks. These are some of the environmental costs the Ogoni have had to pay for the discovery of oil on their land. For all the richness of their land, the Ogoni have very few schools, no hospitals, no pipe-borne water or electricity; their streams are polluted and their sources of livelihood decimated.

The Nigerian government ignored the cries and protests of these groups for decades. Eventually, they resorted to fighting for themselves through damaging property, demonstrations, closing down installations and kidnaping oil workers. The oil companies reacted by immediately inviting the government to intervene, and the government sent in the army to shoot and kill protesters, burn villages and generally drive the people away from their villages and into the forest. When that happened, the uprisings would subside for a season and then arise again. —J.A.