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NIQERIA QOES TO SHELL
For those of you who avoided Athens for
the Olympics or perhaps didn’t pay attention,
the men’s soccer gold medal was won by the
athletes of Nigeria. Many spectators were pull
ing for Nigeria, the underdog against Argen
tina, and it truly was an amazing moment when
the team won in “instant death" overtime —
winning the first gold medal in soccer for all of
Africa. That moment brought glory for Africa
and Nigeria, but also shame.
Last November, Ken Saro-Wiwa, a promi
nent Nigerian writer and activist for the Ogoni
ethnic minority’, was murdered along widt eight
other colleagues by Nigeria’s military dictator,
General Sani Abacha, under the pretense of a
trial and sentencing. The world reacted in hor
ror and shock at how suddenly Ken had been
sentenced and killed, and a number of govern
ments began to take steps to isolate Nigeria.
However, despite the best efforts of Nelson
Mandela, serious sanctions (such as an oil em
bargo) by any Western country were rebuffed
until only the threat of an Olympic ban re
mained. Ironically, not even that flimsy threat
was carried out.
The strife that exists in Nigeria is inevi
table given its history. The British colonial rule
so corrupted the traditional chiefdoms that by
the year of independence in 1960 Nigeria had
been pieced together out cf 250
separate ethnic groups with the
majority groups in powe- hold
ing that power through colonial
politics. Nigeria’s relationship
with Britain was further en
tangled by the discovery of oil by
Shell/ British Petroleum (BP) in
1958. Thereafter, Shell used the
cane blanche permission given
under the British to take what
ever land the', desired and con
tinue to do so today with the
complete permission of the mili
tary dictatorship, which confis
cated all privately owned land in
1978. The oil fields lay in the
Niger Delta, among the Delta minority groups,
particularly the Ogoni.
Ogoniland is 400 square miles of rich land
woven by the many rivulets cf the Niger River
as it winds its way into the Gulf of Guinea. (By
contrast, Gwinnett County is 436 square
miles.) The fertility of the land was able to sup
port 500,000 Ogoni tribespeople — a densely
populated but beautiful area. Their complete
dependence on the bounty of tb p river and
MM
going
earth created within the Ogoni culture
a deep spiritual reverence for nature. Now
their sacred land is crisscrossed with oil
pipes, bums with gas flares and has been
despoiled by the greediness of Shell and
the Nigerian federal government. To de
pict such destruction •* difficult
Tire oil from Nigeria accounts for
14 percent of Shell’s total production
— the largest producer outside of the
United States. Ninety percent of
Nigeria’s oil is found in the Delta re
gion, and oil is estimated to be 80 per
cent of the federal government’s rev
enue. Ogoniland’s 400 square miles has
96 oil wells, four oil fields, one petro
chemical plant, one fertilizer plant and
two refineries. In contrast to rhis
wealth, Ogoniland has no hospitals, few
jobs and a high infant mortality rate.
The land has been decimated. Report
edly there have been 2,976 oil spills
prior to 1991 and 111 since 1985. The
most notorious was the blow-out near Ebubu
where oil flowed like a river and rather than
clean it up, Shell burned the crude, leaving a
crust more than 15 feet thick. Shell bums 76
percent of tire natural gas that is pumped up
with the crude, turning night into day and emit
ting 34 million tons of C02 and
12 million tons of methane,
making these oil fields the
single largest producer of green
house gases — more than the
rest of the world combined. The
land is taken for production and
pipelines without consultation
or compensation to the land
holder, leaving him and his
family destitute without their
means of subsistence farming.
The constant spills have pol
luted the water; the air is sooty
with the burning of flares. This
common affront brought the
differing groups within the
Ogoni together to form the Movement for the
Preservation of the Ogoni People (MOSOP),
which Ken Saro-Wiwa helped to found.
Ken Saro-Wiwa was bom in Bori near the
capital of the Rivers State. He attended Gov
ernment College, Umuahia, and the Univer
sity of Ibadan in western Nigeria, all on gov
ernment scholarships. During the Biaffan Civil
war, he wa^ appointed the civilian administra
tor of the crucial oil port in Bonny. Later, due
all
and
mmm
*
tEHMUCfr
rr
to conflicting politics, he left and started his
own business, a grocery trade which prospered
and grew. lr 1968 he was one of the first cabi
net members of die newly created Rivers State
encompassing the Delta tribes, working in both
education and information.
As a wnter, Ken worked in almost all genres.
Sozaboy: a Novel in Rotten English is his most
noted work of fiction, a passionate statement
against war in general and an account of the
Biafran civil war in Nigeria from 1967-1970.
He also was a regular columnist, a highly suc
cessful television writer/creator of “Basi & Co.,”
the most watched soap opera in Africa, a play
wright, a poet and writer of numerous children’s
books. In 1991, Ken put aside everything to de
vote himse'f to die Ogoni cause; his devotion be
came absolute after his son died suddenly from
heart failure during a rugby game in 1992.
The Movement for the Survival of the
Ogoni People (MOSOP) was created by Ken
and a small handful other educated Ogonis in
1990 not long after the Umuechem massacre,
where paramilitary police gunned down 50 resi
dents who were demanding compensation from
Shell Oil. MOSOP drafted an Ogoni Bill of
Rights, demanded reparations from Shell and
some political autonomy for Ogoniland as an
ethnic minority homeland. Ken became
MGSOP’s spokesperson, using his oratory and
writing skills both to rot e the Ogoni people
and to capture the world’s attention. He used
his stature as an international writer to bring
the plight of the Ogoni before the
United Nations, the African Hu
man Rights Commission and in
ternational environmental/hu
man rights groups.
In December 1992, when the
Nigerian government still had
made no reply to rhe Ogoni Bill
of Rights, MOSOP went directly
to the oil companies, asking for
unpaid back royalties, compensa
tion for environmental damage,
cessation of polluting and danger
ous activities and negotiations
concerning n,,ure oil production.
MOSOP asked for the these de
mands to be met or it would begin
mass action protests. The govern
mental and corporate response was
to increase security, ban public
demonstrations and declare dis
ruption of oil production to be
punishable by death. This measure
of response was not limited to oil
production. When civilian elec
tions were held in June 1993, General Sani
Abacha (who took power in early 1993) an
nulled the vote, dissolved the parliament and
divested the local governments of all power.
The President-elect, Moshood Abiola, was ar
rested a year later when he declared his presi
dency on the vote’s anniversary. He subse
quently spent two years in prison before being
freed June 24,1996, but net before his wife nad
been gunned down on the streets of Lagos.
Shell has long denied assisting the military
dictatorship in any way or playing any role in
Ken’s murder. However, in February 1996, the
London Observer reported that Shell had ad
mitted to buying weapons to arm the Nigerian
police; civil rights groups have also documented
helicopters and speedboats. The current mili
tary crackdown was outlined in an internal
Nigerian military memo by the head of the
Rivers State Internal Security Force dated May
5, 1994: “Shell operations still impossible un
less ruthless military operations are undertaken
for smooth economic activities to com
mence. ... Recommendations: Wasting operations
during MOSOP and other gatherings making con
stant military presence justifiable. Wasting targets
cutting across communities and leadership cadres
especially vocal individuals of various groups.”
After this memo was leaked, Ken said to
Greenpeace: ‘This is it. They are going to arrest
us all and execute us. All for Shell."
TO BE CONTINUED.
Ali Jones
We’re so proud to
be a part of the family.
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