Death of a writer
Writer and activist Ken Saro-Wiwa was hanged on November 10. But, as B.
Skanthakumar explains, Nigeria's real
"I WAS FOUND GUILTY EVEN BEFORE I WAS TRIED" SAID A defiant Saro-Wiwa as he was lead away from the kangaroo court. An international campaign for the release of the nine
Ogoni activists had been gathering pace. Amnesty
International in a report released on September 15th had found outrageous abuses in the pseudo-judicial process and recommended the immediate release of the accused. The
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in New
Zealand had been lobbied hard, with some success.
The response of the South African government shocked many of the campaigners. Only too aware of the repression in Nigeria, and the brutal character of its regime, they knew that the "softly, softly" approach of quiet diplomacy, advocated by President Nelson Mandela right till the bitter end, would not work. The speed with which Mandela has done an about turn and now advocates tough sanctions reflects not just personal embarrassment, but recognition of the anger and disillusionment he caused to those who look to him for Pan African leadership.
KEN SARO-WIWA
Ken Saro-Wiwa was an unlikely radical. He had become very rich in the food business, and wrote novels, plays, poetry, children's books and journalistic articles.
Within Nigeria he was best known as the creator of "Basi and Company"
", a popular television serial which poked fun at national foibles. He made his literary reputation at home and abroad with "Sozaboy",
", subtitled
"A novel in broken English"
because of its innovative use of the everyday slang which most Nigerians speak and "On A Darkling Plain"
, a nonfictional reflection on the Biafran civil war which began in
1967. Nothing in his life had marked him as the dangerous subversive and murderer the regime painted him to be.
During the tortured months of that secessionist conflict
Saro-Wiwa sided with the Federal Military Government of
General Yakubu Gowon against the Easterners — his home criminals are the military junta, and the managers of Shell and the other companies exploiting the country's oil resources.
region. The military appointed him as administrator of a region including the oil port of Bonny in Rivers State.
Although he later fell out with the Gowon regime, he never lost his federalist sympathies. This was ironic, because
MOSOP demanded regional autonomy and was accused of trying to break up the Nigerian federation.
OGONI AGONY
Saro-Wiwa came from the 500 000 strong Ogoni community, one of several indigenous peoples who live in the oil rich Niger Delta in south-eastern Nigeria. For thirty seven years the Anglo-Dutch petroleum company Shell has been mining on-shore in various parts of the Delta. Nigeria is dependent on oil sales for over 90% of its export earnings.
The ruling class has grown rich on oil, but not the Ogonis
(or any other ordinary Nigerians).
The Ogoni unemploy-ment rate is
80%, their literacy rate 20%. This region, which provides oil to the rest of the world, has no electricity, and very poor housing, education and health facilities.
Neglect by the government and the oil companies is exacerbated by the pollution and destruction of the natural environment by Shell.
Ancient surface pipelines criss- cross homes and fields. Between
1982 and 1992, 1.62 million gallons of oil were spilled, in 27 separate incidents, by Shell alone. Five other oil companies operate in the region. When farmers dig into the ground they find pools of oil.
Nothing grows, nothing bears fruit. Nothing is produced but misery. Water is too contaminated to drink or wash in and fishing is a declining occupation. A once self sufficient community has been reduced to importing its food and exporting its young people.
In the extraction of oil, natural gas (which is found in the same deposits) is brought to the surface. Instead of bottling it and selling it as energy, Shell found it more protitable to burn off this natural gas into the atmosphere. Twenty-tour
11
International Viewpoint n° 272
* Nigeria hours a day, for 30 years, until late 1993. Ogonis joke that the gas flares were their lighting. But there is no joke about the resulting acid rain, which kills vegetation and livestock and noxious fumes which cause respiratory problems.
These problems had been observed for decades but there was only indifference from the polluters and from the government. In desperation, Saro-Wiwa and others formed the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People
(MOSOP). Their main demands were compensation from
Shell for past damages, and autonomy for Ogoniland, with a fairer sharing of the revenue extracted from the region.
The formation of MOSOP was a turning point. For the first time, a minority community had begun to organise itself against a giant company. It began non-violent protests against Shell, and contacted environmental and human rights groups outside Nigeria.
Steps were taken to repress the protests. A Mobile Police
Force was created to deal with protesters against Shell.
Homes, whole villiages were burned, people shot at, hundreds imprisoned without charge, and others driven out of their homes into the bush. The head of the Rivers State Internal
Security Force openly boasted about all of this. His men killed over 2 000 Ogonis. As he admitted to journalists, his paymaster was the Nigerian subsidiary of Shell.
The company's police mercenaries are known locally as "kill and go"
-such is their reputation.
Some young militants began taking more aggressive action, which culminated in the killing of four pro-government Ogoni chiefs last year. It was on charges of complicity in this murder that in thic mindor that
Saro-Wiwa and the others were arrested, and framed (as the chief state witness admitted early this year). It didn't matter that the accused could not be placed at the scene of the crime. It was a convenient incident to imprison the entire MOSOP leadership and then to dispose of its best known activists. Both the regime and
Shell had watched with concern at the unity this campaign created among the Ogonis and the example it set to other communities in the region, like the ljaw, Ogbia and Igbidem who have begun to organise themselves.
SOLIDARITY NOW!
The nine MOSOP leaders are dead. The Nigerian government has threatened to hang nineteen more, intoxicated by the ease with which it dealt with Saro-Wiwa and the others. We have to target Shell, which has tremendous influence on the Nigerian government. Its filling stations are being picketed by environmental activists throughout Western Europe. So are Nigerian missions world-wide. *
12 December 1995
Ousting Abacha Nigeria's head of state and Chairman of the Provisional Ruling Council, General Sani Abacha froze the "democratisation" of Nigeria back in 1993. The results of a (barely democratic) contest between two military-made parties were withheld, a short lived interim government installed, followed by the smooth assumption of power by Abacha. The presumed winner of that presidential election, Moshood Abiola, languishes in prison. Numerous appeals for his release have been ignored. In recent months, the retreat of the pro-democracy movement, whose mass character collapsed with the defeat of the oil workers strike in September 1993, has encouraged Abacha to arrest and detain more of his opponents. Among the hundreds of detainees are Frank Kokori of the now dissolved National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), Chima Ubani of the Democratic Alterative group, and Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti of the Campaign for Democracy.
Apart from the embarrassment of the recent hangings, the international financial community is quite pleased with Abacha. The General claims that the budget deficit (90 billion Naira in 1993) has been reduced to N16 billion in 1995.
Regulations restricting Toreign investment and foreign investment and repatriation of capital have been removed. Giant public sector companies like the National Petroleum Corporation and telecommunications service are being shaken Chinua Achebe up, ready for privatisation. Banks, which are largely state owned, have been sacking thousands of workers. The cost of living is rocketing for ordinary people, with a 400% increase in Ben Okri petrol and kerosene prices adding to transport and food costs. Abacha has announced a three year timetable for a political transition to a civilian government. Most Nigerians see right through this. Abacha's predecessor, General Ibrahim Babangida spent billions of Naira on a transition program, which he didn't respect at all. Why should Abacha be any different?
The Commonwealth meeting in New Zealand suspended Nigeria from membership and gave Abacha two years to hand over to a civilian government. But even two days is too long for this brute to remain in power. Arms sales have only now been ended, visas are being refused for the military and trade privileges removed. The danger is that the present junta will be replaced by another faction within the military. What would really hurt the government is an oil boycott, and the freezing of the elite's bank accounts abroad. Ordinary Nigerians would not be as adversely affected by a boycott. After all, revenue from oil has been enjoyed exclusively by the military and a small group of civilian politicians. The trade union movement is under military administration, left wing activists in jail or in exile. [BS] *
"The death of Saro-Wiwa is only Nigeria's most recent wound. And she will receive many more until she is delivered from a dictatorship so contemptuous of the well-being of her people and of world opinion The focus should now be on transforming Nigeria, and using this energy and this rage towards improving the conditions of the Nigerian people
"The death of Saro-Wiwa is only Nigeria's most recent wound. And she will receive many more until she is delivered from a dictatorship so contemptuous of the well-being of her people and of world opinion The focus should now be on transforming Nigeria, and using this energy and this rage towards improving the conditions of the Nigerian people
Québec