Civil Society Organisation (CSO) in Rivers have condemned in strong terms the consideration of pardoning late environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others murdered by killed by the Sani Abacha administration.
The group made the remark during the 26th anniversary of the death of Ken Saro Wiwa and eight others in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
The conveners of the CSO, Enefa Georgewill and Ken Henshaw, the executive director, said “We the people task the federal government under President Muhamadu Buhari not to think of pardoning Ken Saro Wiwa and others since they were murdered by the federal government under the watch of Shell Petroleum Development Company that the environmental activist fought against due to environmental degradation and injustice in Ogoni
They said their killing was below the standard anywhere in the world.
The murder was a mockery of the judicial process orchestrated by the government and Shell to quell down community demand to restore their most ecological injustice, hence they were hanged against the right to appeal a standard set up by the tribunal which they honestly disobeyed due to their interest.
The statement further explained that the bill of rights as stated by the Ogonis was part of why the federal government under President Olusegun Obasanjo invited the United Nations Environment Protection (UNEP) which vindicated the Ogoni position. The Movement of the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) had demanded a fair share of the oil wealth.
In his contribution, Nnimmo Bassey said the government should leave the fossil fuel under the soil noting that alternative energy sources should be the way of the many years’ environmental degradation in Ogoni and call for total clean up the Niger Delta while encouraging everyone to maintain and sustain the struggle.
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Also speaking, Celestine Akpoobari urged the government to exonerate Ken Saro Wiwa and apologise to the family of the late activist for the unjust killing.
He maintained that this present administration honoured the late Moshood Abiola and settled them with a Yoruba president in the name of Obasanjo saying that to resume oil exploration in Ogoni now when the clean up is not proper concluded will bring another round of crisis and killing in the land.
Chima William of Environmental Right Action (ERA), posited that the judicial system that tried Ken Saro Wiwa and eight others was a mockery and miscarriage of justice and declared that the President apologise for the killing of a human rights crusader who was an International environmental defender since they were innocent of the crime they were alleged to have committed then and call for the renaming of Ken Saro Wiwa against that of General Sani Abacha expressing disappointment on the purported resumption of Ogoni oil.
Ken Henshaw have earlier mentioned that the killing was a careful script designed and executed by both government and Shell simply because Ken Saro Wiwa and Ogoni was able to dare Shell and stopped their environmental impunity, saying the planned pardon is an insult to the sensibility of Ogoni as this will mean that they were guilty of the charges levelled against them.
Our correspondent who monitored the event said many people attended the meeting through Zoom. Every November 10, in Ogoni , Niger Delta and the world, many honour and remember the great Ogoni sons who were wrongly accused of killing the four prominent Ogoni sons, Edward Kobani, Albert Badey, and Theophilus Orage and his brother, a plot by the military government to destabilise Ogoni people.
