Niger Delta Black Gold Blues: Can Writers Bring About Environmental Justice Where Slow Violence Has Proven So Devastating? or A Cautionary Tale for Environmental Sacrifice Zones Worldwide

The 1990's: Ken Saro-Wiwa, MOSOP, and the International Response

By Rachel Giesen and Emma Klitzke


The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), started with a bang in August, 1990. The MOSOP submitted the Ogoni Bill of Rights to the Nigerian Government, and by the end of October 1990, the whole world knew about them.

Wumi Raji states that the MOSOP Bill of Rights "demanded ethnic autonomy and self-determination for the people of Ogoniland" (Raji 116), and that statement pretty much sums up the entire purpose of the MOSOP. However, a year after the MOSOP submitted their bill of rights, signed August 26th 1990 (Raji 116), to General Ibrahim Babangida and his other important members of government, Nigeria's leaders still hadn't addressed it. So in July, 1992, Ken Saro-Wiwa took the MOSOP's Bill of Rights and their complaints to the United Nations to alert them that the Nigerian government wasn't benefiting its citizens (Raji 117). Later, as Rob Nixon reports, the MOSOP would gain the support of "The Body Shop, Abroad, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch/Africa, and International PEN" (111). Raji suggests that the world's attention became focused on Nigeria after October 31st, 1990, when members of the MOSOP held a formal protest at a Shell Oil Company facility near Port Harcourt, Rivers State. Shell asked the Nigerian government for military aid against these nonviolent protesters and the government sent the Nigerian Mobile Police (NMP) to protect Shell. 80 defenseless protesters were murdered and almost 500 homes in the surrounding area were destroyed by the NMP (Raji 115-116). Nixon states that by the time Ken Saro-Wiwa was murdered in 1995, the NMP's body count was up in the 2,000s (109).

However, the MOSOP stood strong against military and government attacks. In December of 1992, the MOSOP sent demands to the three biggest oil companies in the area: Shell Petroleum Dutch Company, Chevron, and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, along with an ultimatum: pay our reparations within thirty days, or get out (Quayson 70-71). The total sum was over 10 billion dollars. All of the MOSOP's struggles paid off in May 1993: Shell withdrew its American employees and their machinery from Ogoniland (Global Nonviolent Action Database).

August 1993 is the first time any part of the Nigerian government meets to talk about Ogoniland. The Interim government, at this point led by General Ibrahim Babangida, meets with MOSOP leaders (MOSOP). However, this success doesn't last. In November, General Babangida and his government resign, and General Abacha takes over (MOSOP).

May 21, 1994, is when it starts getting impressively bad: four Ogoni chiefs were murdered at an MOSOP rally (Orage 40). Seemingly to find the perpetrators, members of the Rivers State Internal Security acted violently against the Ogoni population, murdering, raping, destroying; verbs usually left for old-timey pirates and brigands (MOSOP). According to the New York Times, General Abacha's government blames Ken Saro-Wiwa, head of the MOSOP, with incitement to murder, along with eight other Ogoni chiefs, and on the 1st of November holds a trial to find them guilty (Ken Saro-Wiwa). The Ogoni Nine, as they would come to be called, are sentenced with execution (Ken Saro-Wiwa). On November 10, 1995, the Ogoni Nine are hanged, and the entire world is outraged. Nigeria is almost immediately kicked out of the Commonwealth of Nations, as they claim that Nigeria had "violated human rights" (Olafioye 183) with the murder of the Ogoni Nine; CNN says it was the fastest execution to take place in West Africa (Cable News Network).

Only in 2010, fifteen years after Ken Saro-Wiwa was murdered by his own government, do we begin to see glimpses of the full picture. As rumors would have it, the Nigerian military were apparently accepting bribes, and probably killed the four Ogoni chiefs so that Ken Saro-Wiwa and others could be blamed for it (Rowell and Lubbers).
 

Sources Cited

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