By Obiabin Onukwugha
The recent presidential pardon granted Ogoni leaders have continued to illicit reaction from different individuals and stakeholders across the Niger Delta region and Nigeria at large.
Ken Saro-Wiwa, Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, and Barinem Kiobel, were among 175 Nigerians granted the pardon by President Bola Tinubu, as part of Nigeria’s 65th Independence anniversary.
Also pardoned were foremost nationalist Sir Herbert Macaulay; poet and soldier Major-General Mamman Vatsa, amongst others. Of the total recommended for presidential clemency, there were about 82 pardons, 65 persons recommended for reduced sentences, and seven whose sentences were commuted from death to life imprisonment.
Since the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa and others 30 years ago, the Ogonis have insisted and pushed for a presidential exoneration. The pardon by the federal government, therefore did not come as a surprise, especially as the Tinubu-led government is doing everything within its reach to re-enter Ogoniland for crude oil exploration.
However, the announcement is not going down well with those who have been in the struggle for environment justice for the Ogonis and the Niger Delta region thirty years after the murder to the Ogoni leaders. This stems from a press statement by the Special Adviser on Information and Strategy to the President, Mr Bayo Onanuga, announcing the justifications for the pardons and clemency.
Reacting to the statement, environmental bodies and civil society organizations led by Health of Mother Earth Foundation, HOMEF, condemned the context and content of the pardon, which they said, extended to a mixture of convicted murderers, kidnappers, drug dealers, coup plotters, armed robbers and illegal miners totaling 175. The bodies posited that while they hold no hard opinions about those pardoned by the President, the statement by Onanuga paints a sordid and misleading picture that the Ogoni 9 were, in actual fact, murderers.
“In the Statehouse news release titled Details of the Presidential Pardon and Clemency, Onanuga anniunced that, “Illegal miners, white-collar convicts, remorseful drug offenders, foreigners, Major General Mamman Vatsa, Major Akubo, Professor Magaji Garba, capital offenders such as Maryam Sanda, Ken Saro Wiwa, and the other Ogoni Eight were among the 175 convicts and former convicts who received President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s mercy on Thursday. Onanuga also referred to 4 Ogoni leaders who were unfortunately murdered by a mob in 1995, and whose murder the Ogoni 9 were framed for, as ‘victims of the Ogoni 9’. This later reference paints a sordid and misleading picture that the Ogoni 9 were, in actual fact, murderers.
“The statement by the Presidential Adviser is laced with insinuations and references that have no bearing on history, reality and globally acceptable facts about the occurrences that led to the execution of Ken Saro Wiwa and his fellow rights activists on November 10, 1995,” the statement by the CSOs read in part.
The CSOs called on Tinubu to immediately withdraw the ‘pardon’ to Ken Saro Wiwa and his colleagues, and replace it with an unequivocal apology and condemnation of the faulty judicial process that resulted in their murder, followed by a gazette pronouncement quashing their murder conviction.
They recalled that in 1958, Ogoniland emerged as a focal area within Nigeria’s growing oil economy, contributing major revenues to the country’s economy. “Unfortunately, the benefits from oil resources have not reached the Ogoni people in any significant measure. Rather, Ogoni communities have for decades borne the impacts of the industry’s adverse activities. In 1970, Ogoniland witnessed Nigeria’s first major oil spill arising from an error by Shell, a spill that continued for 3 whole weeks with devastating consequences for the livelihoods of the people. Since then, oil spills and blowouts have occurred on a regular basis in Ogoniland.
Estimates have it that in the 15-year period between 1976 and 1991, there were 2,976 recorded oil spills in Ogoniland. It was this level of neglect and ecological destruction that led to the adoption of the 1990 Ogoni Bill of Rights, a landmark document that demanded the right of the Ogoni people to protect their environment and ecology from further degradation. Among others, the Bill describes the Ogoni case as a ‘genocide being committed in the dying years of the twentieth century by multi-national oil companies under the supervision of the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” the CSOs said.
They mentioned that Ogoni people, mobilised under the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), called the attention of the world to the poverty, neglect and environmental destruction which decades of oil exploitation had bequeathed on the Ogoni people. MOSOP demanded fairer benefits to the Ogoni people from oil wealth, as well as remediation and compensation for the ecological damage caused by the reckless activities of oil companies.
“The Nigerian military government responded to the demands and non-violent protests of the people with vicious repression. A military operation was initiated in Ogoniland. The mass killings and widespread carnage that the military visited on the Ogonis remain largely undocumented. Thousands of Ogonis lost their lives, and many others went into forced exile around the world. In May 1994, capitalising on the unfortunate killing of 4 prominent Ogoni leaders by a mob of yet-to-be-identified persons in Gokana local government area, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, and Barinem Kiobel were arrested.
“After a few months of predetermined trial by a special military tribunal, a sentence of death was pronounced on Ken Saro-Wiwa and 8 others on October 31, 1995. 10 days after, within the period the accused persons could appeal the judgement, the nine were immediately executed on November 10, 1995, against a backdrop of outrage, global condemnation and eventually, international sanctions on Nigeria. It is important to note that this was a trial in which forced witnesses recanted their testimonies, and the accused’s lawyers withdrew due to the tribunal’s predetermined, biased position.
“What Ogonis and indeed the world have consistently demanded is an admission that the quasi-judicial process, which resulted in the conviction of the Ogoni 9, was a mockery of justice orchestrated by the military government with the active collaboration of Shell to quell community demands for resources and ecological justice. What we continue to demand is the complete exoneration of Ken Saro- Wiwa and his eight comrades. The reference to Ken Saro-Wiwa and his comrades by the Presidency is insensitive and offensive to their memory and that of other victims of environmental injustice. It does little to bring closure to the families of those killed, and thousands of families who suffered indignity, abuse and losses on account of the reckless military expedition in Ogoni led by Major Paul Okuntimo and Dauda Musa Komo,” the CSOs stated further..
They rejected the fact that despite overwhelming evidence of the miscarriage of justice against the Ogoni 9, which resulted in their hurried execution, the Nigerian state still considers them guilty and deserving of a pardon, saying, “In the said statement, no mention was made of the abuse of the judicial process nor of the fact that the constitutional right to appeal was not extended to the 9.”
“Ken Saro-Wiwa, Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, and Barinem Kiobel were exemplary leaders of the Ogoni nation who responded peacefully to the plight of their people and the destruction of their environment. Their commitment to right historical wrongs against their people and the environment should be recognised and commended,” the statement read.