Ogoni is located in the south-eastern part of Rivers State. It is presently found in the Rivers South-East Senatorial District. Ogoni comprises four local government areas of Khana, Gokana, Tai and Eleme. According to the 1990 National Population Census figure, the Ogoni people number approximately 832,000 people,19 and are said to have settled in the area well before the 15th century.20 In terms of landmass, the Ogoni occupy an area of approximately 404 square miles in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.21Ogoniland has six kingdoms, namely:
Ken-Khana, Nyon-Khana, Babbe, Gokana, Tai and Eleme, with four main languages – related but mutually unintelligible – spoken.22 This is shown in Figure 6 below.
Traditionally, the Ogoni economy depends exclusively on agriculture – farming and fishing.23 They revere the land on which they live as well as the rivers that surround them. In the Ogoni local language, a tradition of “honouring the land’, also called ‘land rites’ is referred to as ‘DoonuKuneke’. Land means everything to the Ogoni. It serves as the god of the people and as such is worshipped.24 Land is regarded as the provider of food. The planting season which begins in October every year is observed not just as an agricultural activity in Ogoniland, but also as a spiritual, religious and social occasion interspersed with
19United Nations Environment Programme, Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland (UNEP, Nairobi 2011) 22.
20K S Wiwa, Genocide in Nigeria: The Ogoni Tragedy (Port Harcourt: Saros International Publishers 1992).
21ILO/ACHPR (n 36) 3.
22‘The Ogoni Nation’ <https://www.mosop.net/mosopogoniKhtm/> accessed 4 October 2017.
23K S Wiwa (n 38).
24R Boele, Report of the UNPO Mission to Investigate the Situation of the Ogoni of Nigeria (UNPO, The Hague 1995) 7.
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festivities.25 As is the norm in other parts of Nigeria, the land tenure system of the Ogoni people is based on native law and custom. Under the customary law of the people, land belongs to the community.26 Individuals only have rights of usufruct and as such may not sell or alienate interest in land.27 Only the community could sell or alienate land.28 However, land could be partitioned to the various families constituting a community, and land partitioned to a family may pass to the individual members of such family who may validly alienate same.
In 1958, oil was discovered in Ogoniland. SPDC and its joint venture partners operate five major oil fields in Ogoniland, each with its flow stations. In 1993, the total production potential from SPDC’s Ogoni fields was approximately 28,000 barrels per day which translates to roughly 3 percent of SPDC’s overall production at the time. CNL also operated in Ogoniland until 1993 but on a smaller scale.29 As in other parts of the Niger Delta, the environment in Ogoniland has been damaged by oil production. Ken SaroWiwa, an internationally known author, environmentalist and leader of the Ogoni people, claimed that the environment in Ogoniland had been ‘completely devastated by three decades of reckless oil exploitation or ecological warfare by Shell.30 The Ogoni people felt that the prevailing revenue allocation formula which places the control of oil revenue in the hands of the federal government of Nigeria dominated by the major ethnic groups which contribute little to the nation’s revenue, while subjecting the Ogoni people to environmental abuse and degradation, was discriminatory.31 In order to seek justice from the Nigerian State, the leaders of Ogoni founded the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People [MOSOP], which was used to
25 L S Pyagbara, ‘The Ogoni of Nigeria: Oil and
Exploration’<https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/469cbfce0.pdf accessed 16 September 2017.
26Ibid.
27Ibid.
28Ibid.
29 B Manby, Shell in Nigeria: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Ogoni Crisis (New York: Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs) 5.
30Ibid.
31ILO/ACHPR (n 36) 4.
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specifically highlight the grievances of the Ogoni people against SPDC and the Nigerian government, on the national and international stage. As a result, MOSOP’s activities directly threatened the foundations of the Nigerian military government, which responded swiftly by unleashing terror, mayhem and repression on the Ogoni people.32 Still in agitations for their rights as indigenous peoples under international law and in search of justice from the Nigerian State, MOSOP adopted the Ogoni Bill of Rights [OBR] in 1990, a document which chronicled the grievances of the Ogoni people and their demand for political autonomy to participate in the affairs of the Nigerian government as a distinct and separate unit, including the right to the control and use of a fair proportion of Ogoni economic resources for Ogoni development. MOSOP’s political demands were targeted at the Nigerian Federal Government, but it also accused Shell of full responsibility for the genocide in Ogoniland. In October 1990, MOSOP presented the OBR to the then military Head of State, General Ibrahim BadamosiBabangida, but received no response.33 In December 1992, after about two years of waiting, MOSOP sent its demands to Shell, Chevron and the NNPC, together with an ultimatum that they pay back royalties and compensation for the use and exploitation of Ogoni economic resources, within 30 days or quit Ogoniland.34 On January 4, 1993, a date afterwards known as “Ogoni Day”, MOSOP held a mass rally in Ogoniland, followed by series of non-violent protests against Shell and its cronies. Shell withdrew its staff from Ogoniland in January 1993 and ceased production at its facilities in Ogoniland in mid-1993, citing intimidation and attacks on its staff.35 These demonstrations of organized political opposition to both government and oil companies provoked a military crackdown in Ogoniland. Ken SaroWiwa and other MOSOP leaders were detained severally in 1993. In 1995, the new military Head of State, General SaniAbacha, and the Military administrator of
32Ibid.
33ILO/ACHPR, Nigeria: Constitutional, Legal and Administrative Provisions concerning Indigenous Peoples (ILO, Geneva 2009) 3.
34Ibid.
35Ibid.
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Rivers State, Lieutenant Colonel Musa Komo, set up the Rivers State Internal Security Task Force, a special military unit in 1994 headed by the dreaded major Paul Okuntimo specifically to deal with the Ogoni crisis. The task force committed grave human rights abuses in Ogoniland ranging from detentions, harassments, extra-judicial execution of MOSOP leaders and activists as well as involvement in promoting violent clashes between the Ogoni and neighbouring ethnic groups, particularly the Okrika and Andoni.36
In May 1994, four prominent Ogoni leaders were brutally murdered. The Nigerian authorities claimed that the murder of the Ogoni leaders was instigated by Ken SaroWiwa and other MOSOP leaders, and this led to their arrest, detention and trial before a Kangaroo tribunal.
Sixteen members of the MOSOP leadership were put on trial, and nine including Ken SaroWiwa, were eventually convicted and sentenced to death by the special military tribunal specially constituted for the case and whose procedures blatantly violated all known international standards of due process. Denuded of the right of appeal, the Ogoni nine were executed on 10th November 1995 amidst intense international condemnation and protests.37