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December 1997 Nigeria After Saro-Wiwa: Ogoni People and Environment Sacrificed on Oil's Altar By Goodluck Diigbo

 

Goodluck Diigbo is a member of the Steering Committee of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), and the National President of the National Youth Council of the Ogoni People. He worked closely with MOSOP President Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed two years ago by the Nigerian government under the leadership of General Abacha. Diigbo, a journalist, is under the death sentence in Nigeria for his activism around Ogoni peoples' rights. Granted political asylum in the U.S., he now lives in New York City and works for Ogoni human rights and a return to democracy in Nigeria.

The key issues of human rights in Nigeria include the issues of democracy and economic, environmental and social justice. Why must an American citizen be concerned about human rights in Nigeria? We live in an interdependent world. Human rights are common to all human beings, and what is happening in Nigeria should concern you as a human being, wherever you are. There is also international cooperation--in terms of economic development, trade and other issues--and no country, even the U.S., can claim to be self-reliant. This is particularly true in terms of natural resources, especially what has drawn attention to Nigeria--oil. Oil is something every country wants. America is an important constituent of oil in Nigeria; about 40 percent of American oil is imported from Nigeria, and America is very serious about democracy. What I want to do, and what my colleagues--Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others, and the Ogoni 20--were trying to do is convince the world to concentrate attention on Shell Oil when we talk about the lack of democracy in Nigeria.

Shell is the biggest funder of the undemocratic, illegal, barbaric regime in Nigeria, a regime that has total contempt for international law and world opinion. The main source of power for the Abacha regime is the money coming from Shell. In Nigeria, one man, General Abacha, combines the function of the courts, the Congress and the President, and is ruling the country by decree. So, we must focus on what Shell is doing to keep this regime strong. What is Shell actually doing? Shell has waged ecological war against the Ogoni people. Shell has been playing the cards against the Ogoni for about 40 years now. Shell does not conduct environmental impact assessments. The community, the people, are not involved in the decisions about where Shell should and should not operate. The Ogoni are not benefiting from the proceeds of this oil exploration and extraction. As a result, Shell depends on the power of the gun. As a colonial structure, Shell prefers colonialism to democracy.

Lands are being seized at gun point from a people whose livelihoods depend solely on what they get from their land, who regard land as their god. In the past, the Ogoni people lived almost in a state of nature, mixing freely with animals from the forest. The region was a very dense forest zone. All that has been destroyed. You can imagine the psychological impact on our way of life when somebody comes in to disrupt all these things. The lack of human rights in Ogoni today is because of oil. When you use force of arms to try to disrupt a government, you are told: "Don't do that. It is political terrorism." If Shell is using force of arms to seize lands from Ogoni people, we must acknowledge the fact that Shell is committing economic terrorism, and terrorism of any form is an international crime.

Lessons of the Struggle
When I look back to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, where Washington failed, the rest won--the angry American people, as I read back home, joined the struggle. The youths, the municipalities and city councils would get together and raise the issue. Similar support is needed for the Ogoni people, and for all Nigerians. The Ogoni people are an indigenous people, and there are more than 300 million indigenous people around the world. The case of the Ogoni is not an isolated case. It is symbolic; other indigenous people around the world are watching how the Ogoni people will be treated. We as Ogoni people are not against economic development; we believe in it. But we ask that our environment not be destroyed. We are not against markets around the world, but we are against markets without a human face.

I have been to Shell headquarters in London, in the Hague and in New York, and I found Shell staffers well-dressed and well-fed. Thirty billion dollars worth of oil has been taken from the Ogoni region, and still there is no electricity, no good water, no good roads. Playing down what Shell is doing will not help the Ogoni people, and it will not help democracy return to Nigeria. My colleagues and I now call for two things: comprehensive economic sanctions against the military regime in Nigeria, including prohibitions on the export of Nigerian oil; and a boycott by consumers of all Shell Oil products. We must condemn an oil company's brutality within a military regime that is against its own people, and we must re-emphasize that the Earth is the hope for everyone. Whatever your color, we all belong to the same group, to the Earth. We must now stand firmly and say, even at the risk of retribution, that the environment and human rights are much more important than oil profits.

For more information on the campaign for the Ogoni people in New York and around the U.S., see Resources and contact Goodluck Diigbo at the African Services Committee, 212-683-5019. Fax: 212-779-2862.

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