National Daily

Saro-Wiwa's murder: Shell faces trial in U.S., 10 yrs after

From NWADIKE UGOCHUKWU,Port Harcourt

QUEST for justice over the gruesome murder of the renowned Ogoni Environmental rights activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa who was slain by the military administration of the late General Sani Abacha has gained fresh momentum with the putting on trial of the Anglo Dutch Oil giant, Shell Petroleum Development Company Nigeria Limited in far away United States (U.S.) over a decade after.

The latest development was revealed amid latest efforts to quench the violence unleashed by militants in the Niger Delta and restore peace to the region.

The plight of the Ogoni people and their renewed commitment to the struggle were revisited recently as they marked the dastardly act of the Abacha regime exactly15 years on, offering final burial rites of Shell in the land.
"This is significant in that conducting the burial rites for corporate irresponsibility, corporate driven strategy of divide and rule, corporate oppression, we also celebrating the victory of non-violence of a strategy in an increasingly violent environment," said the president of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People(MOSOP), Barrister Ledum Mitee during the celebrations in Bori, Rivers State.

A visibly agitated Mitee who also is chairman presidential committee on Niger Delta, said last month, a U.S. District Court for the southern district New York passed a judgment, insisting that Shell must face trial for its role in the condemnable murder of the Ogoni Hereos.

Though not satisfied with the judgment, the MOSOP leader noted that justice is rapidly coming almost 10 years after the families filed their case in the U.S. court to challenge the murder of the freedom fighters who died in the struggle for the Emancipation of the Ogoni people.

The Nigerian government over the years had subjected Ogoni people under untold hardship, injustices, marginalization, and oppression in collaboration with the Shell petroleum development company, he observed.
Mitee said: "No matter the strains of the length of time involved, justice is coming to Ogoni people. The peaceful resistance of the people was the best option for enduring struggle against the forces that continually seek to oppress the Ogoni people, he said.

He stressed that "the struggle would continue to reflect on the lives of all those who had paid the supreme price of martyrdom so that they may live and learn from their successes.
"The choices they made and the difficult challenges that they faced and see how we can adapt these lessons to the challenges we face in our present efforts.

"We are on this anniversary of the execution of the heroes of the Ogoni, as well, conducting the final burial rites of Shell in Ogoni land. This is significant in that conducting the burial rites for corporate irresponsibility, corporate driven strategy of divide and rule, corporate oppression, we also are celebrating the victory of non-violence strategy in an increasingly violent environment." Mitee said, after years of dithering, the federal government finally came to accept what the people of Ogoni have always insisted that Shell is persona non grata in Ogoni.
However, he called on the Ogonis to remain committed to the struggle in spite of the fiery darts of hardship had confronted them on the way to victories.

Mitee also charged the Ogoni people not to be compromised by money from Shell to mortgage their future. And to Ogoni students, he urged that they must carry the banner of the struggle to the four corners of their institutions.
"The struggle required extraordinary commitment. As we do in the powers of non violent peaceful resistance are breaking forth from the dark dangerous of hopelessness to a bright morning of victory over decades of racial bigotry, denial and marginalization from the Nigerian State." It could be recalled that the four prominent Ogoni leaders were murdered in a stage-managed violence that bore the trademark of the then head of state Abacha's military dictatorship.

National Daily learnt that within 24 hours, the Military Junta framed up the leadership of the "MOSOP for the premeditated murder that set the stage for the mass arrests, regression, rape, unjust detention and genocide."
The height of the criminality perpetrated by the government was the hanging of Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni leaders in November 1995, barely 10 days after they were convicted. Despite the outcry by the international community and the fact that the specified 30 days for appeal was yet to expire, the junta regime still went ahead to execute the Ogoni nine.

The struggle by the Saro-Wiwa-led MOSOP was essentially directed at the expression on Ogoni and Niger Delta activists and communities in collaboration of the federal government and the oil prospecting firms.
It was a struggle against the occupation and destruction of the Ogoni environment through underdevelopment promoted by the government in the Niger Delta region. These issue still remain unresolved despite the Ogonis have tabled their demand to the federal government to ensure enduring peace.

The list include that the federal government *must accept responsibility and offer public apology for the murder of Ken Saro Wiwa and eight others and the criminal atrocities by its agents, Shell and other oil companies in the Niger Delta;
* should quash the murder conviction, implement the issue raised in Ogoni Bill of Rights: that families of the Ogoni martyrs be compensated, with the immediate clean up of the messed Ogoni environment; and
*must ensure democratic control of the oil wealth by the people of Niger Delta.