By Rafiu Ajakaye
LAGOS, Nigeria
Thousands of protestors gathered in Bori this week to mark the 20th anniversary of the executions of playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other environmental activists in Nigeria’s oil-rich south.
Tuesday’s milestone commemorations come amid worries over rising tensions surrounding the oil industry’s exploration and extraction projects in Rivers state, home of the Ogoni people and for decades the scene of large-scale pollution that has all but destroyed livelihoods such as fishing.
One recent episode above all has enraged activists who have been battling for more than two decades for justice for the environmental and social havoc wreaked on their homeland - the seizure of a sculpture that was to have been unveiled for the anniversary.
The sculpture of a bus is inscribed with Saro-Wiwa’s words at his 1995 trial - “I accuse the oil companies of genocide in Ogoniland”.
It was donated by a British group in honor of the Ogoni martyrs and had been due to be placed in Bori, the traditional center of Ogoni culture and Saro-Wiwa’s hometown.
However, in a move activists say shows the government's disdain for the Ogoni and their struggle, the artwork was confiscated by Nigerian customs officials when it arrived in the country.
Nnimmo Bassey, director of the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, said the government should take steps to clean up the environment and support the recognition of the Ogoni Nine rather than try to thwart commemoration projects.
“It was quite insensitive of the customs officials because the Nigerian state has to accept the fact that Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other Ogoni leaders were wrongly executed,” Bassey told Anadolu Agency. “They cannot also kill his memory.”
He added: “The Ogoni people have a right to accept a gift from anyone to help keep the memory alive… Ken Saro-Wiwa was a man of culture. He was a writer and dramatist and having a sculpture to commemorate his execution is just an artistic expression which should be something that the government should actually support.
“We have to learn to tell our history. No government official has a right to erase the history of Nigeria from our memories. I think the seizure is an assault on history and Saro-Wiwa himself said we all stand before history. Nobody can erase history in the manner the customs officials are trying to do.”
To add to the apparent insensitivity of the seizure, the man who currently heads the Nigerian Customs Service, Col. Hammed Ali, was a member of the secret panel that sentenced Saro-Wiwa and his eight comrades to death.
Government sources told Anadolu Agency that Ali had not ordered the confiscation of the sculpture.
The customs service did not respond to requests for a comment but a customs source told Anadolu Agency the sculpture arrived in Lagos months ago but activists had not got the necessary clearance from the commerce and culture ministries.
“It is the clearance that is needed,” the source said. “Besides, anything [to do with] Saro-Wiwa has to be dealt with with a lot of caution, so officials will not take money and just release the bus.”
Hanged
Saro-Wiwa was hanged alongside eight other leaders of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) after they were found to have murdered four Ogoni chiefs who supported the military regime of Gen. Sani Abacha.
The case was widely condemned by human rights groups as flawed and state witnesses later recanted their testimonies. It led to Nigeria being suspended from the Commonwealth.
The MOSOP is a non-violent umbrella group that campaigns for social, economic and environmental justice related to oil pollution in the Niger delta.
It organized protests against oil giant Shell, the biggest player in Africa’s largest oil producing country and which a Dutch court has found partially liable for pollution that has destroyed mangrove forests, crops and fish stocks.
Oil pollution has also led to health issues for the local population, including breathing problems and skin lesions, and reduced access to food and clean water.
In 2009, Shell agreed to pay $15.5 million on the eve of legal action that accused the company of collaborating in the executions. The families of the Ogoni Nine claimed Shell conspired with the junta to hang the men as well as allegedly committing other human rights violations, such as working with the army to kill and torture Ogoni protestors.
The company denied the claims and said it had no role in the violence that swept southern Nigeria in the 1990s.
Last week, Amnesty International and the Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development said Shell had made false claims about the extent of clean-up operations in Nigeria. The company denied the allegations.
On Tuesday, a “justice rally” to remember the Ogoni Nine was held in Bori while state capital Port Harcourt witnessed a candle-lit procession to mark the executions and Abuja’s environmental negligence.
Armed police were deployed but there was no sign of violence at either occasion.
It is the issue of the sculpture, created by U.K.-based Nigerian artist Sokari Douglas Camp, that seems to have concentrated Ogoni fury. The Twitter hashtag #bus4Ogoni9 trended in Nigeria ahead of Tuesday as pressure built for the government to release the artwork.
Ultimatum
Celestine AkpoBari, a coordinator at the Ogoni Solidarity Forum, said a five-day ultimatum given to the government to release the sculpture had passed. He said “mass action” would be organized until it is delivered.
MOSOP leader Ledum Mitee, who was acquitted in the 1995 case, called on the government to address grievances that have been simmering for two decades.
“The fact that those issues are still alive shows that the only way we can deal with them is the enthronement of justice to enable the people to have the justice that they have struggled and sacrificed for,” he told Anadolu Agency.
He added: “We have prosecuted a remarkably nonviolent campaign but the government’s response has always been in favor of violence.
“Therefore, the only thing that attracts some form of government response has been the amount of violence you can unleash and I think that has sent the message that it is only the violent approach that attracts attention, which is a sad commentary.”
Between 2006 and 2009 militants waged a violent insurgency in the delta, which largely ended with a 2009 amnesty.
However, according to Mitee, little has changed.
“During the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005 he said they will take steps to ensure that Nigeria immortalizes the heroes of the struggle but up to today that promise has not been fulfilled,” Mitee said.
“That we are still today talking about issues which ordinarily people in other parts of the world take for granted, such as clean environment, basic issues like decent living and clean water, shows how far the state and corporate institutions operating in the Niger Delta, especially the oil companies, have failed to respect the basic rights of our people.”
Environmentalist Bassey agreed and urged the government to implement the UN’s 2011 environmental report on the delta that recommended the immediate clean-up of Ogoniland.
“I advise the government to immediately commence, set up the structure and provide the funding for the clean-up of Ogoniland,” he said.
“That is a signal that has to be made immediately because we are having memorable days and events coming up consistently and we cannot afford to have this kind of situation fester.”
