The Olusegun Obasanjo Peace and reconciliation committee: ten years after the killing of Ken Saro Wiwa

The Directors of International Ministry
Rev. Can. Andrew White &
Rev. Can. Justin Welby
International Center for Reconciliation
Coventry Cathedral
Hill Top
Coventry
CV 1 5AB
United Kingdom

The Olusegun Obasanjo's Peace and Reconciliation Committee: Ten years after the killing of Ken Saro Wiwa.

We are a registered non-profit organization that is based in Cape Town, South Africa. We are formed for the over all aim of building international solidarity and concern for the Ogoni agitation and just demands based on the Ogoni Bill of Rights, we are also currently focussed on the conditions of the Displaced Ogoni Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Ouidah, Benin Republic. (See Appendix A and B)

While we are not against reasonable, realistic and constructive engagement with the Nigerian State and Shell or any other oil company. We are fundamentally opposed to the compromised pursuit of the Ogoni agenda and the "meddling with" and "rub in process" by the Nigerian unrealistic partisan politics into the present MOSOP structure.

We therefore make our submission in respect of the recent peace committee set up by the Nigerian civil in appearance and apparel but undemocratic in practice President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. The panel or committee as announced, by various Nigerian newspapers on the 1^st day of June 2005, would be working with your noble center. In this regard, we humbly call your attention to the following very important issues and facts that would be imperative to the process, if, the Nigerian State is sincere about the process. (See Appendix C)

1. That the Ogoni Bill of Rights, OBR, was submitted to the Nigerian government fifteen years ago as the basic demands of the Ogoni people. And that at no point in time within this fifteen years had any administration from the one that received the OBR through others that followed. Up to the present one, tried to do anything in respect of a demand that was generally agreed upon and endorsed through open acclamation by over three hundred thousand (300,000+) of the Ogoni people.

2. That contrary to the postulation that the present Nigerian President was not a role player in the plight of the Ogoni people and the Niger Delta. We hereby remind you that the present Nigerian head of state, in 1978 promulgated the Nigerian Land Use Decree and the Petroleum Act Law.

3. That the twin obnoxious laws, did not only dispossess the Ogoni people and other ethnic minorities of their rights to use the resources of their land for their own development. But the president has continually remain adamant to honest call for the repeal of these decrees that empower all subsequent administrations to constitutionally rob and brutalize the Ogoni people. (Pp. 7 appendix A)

4. That the Ogoni people had never met anywhere since the expression of their desires as stated in the Ogoni Bill of Rights to consider any reduction of what was presented to the Nigerian government as the basic and minimum demands of the Ogoni people. And the Ogoni people had neither empowered any person(s) to unilaterally make any such change as in making any reduction or distortion of what has become the "political bible" of the Ogoni people. Nor does any one group of Ogoni people has that power to impose upon itself the power to force upon the Ogoni people what it assumes or think appropriate other than what was agreed upon by the Ogoni people when putting together the Ogoni Bill of Rights.

5. The government of Olusegun Obasanjo has within its tenures made several serious manipulative and disastrous attempts to force a foster peace that aims at nothing but a permanent undermining of the Ogoni Bill of Rights.

6. We therefore remind your organization that, the Nigerian government apart from pockets of local committees set up, which tried to campaign and bring back Shell Petroleum Development Company. The government did establish the Human Rights Violation Investigation Commission, otherwise referred to as the Oputa Panel.

7. That the Panel considered 10,000 petitions and out of this total sum, the Ogoni people submitted 8,000 petitions to the panel.

8. The government of Obasanjo did not respect the recommendation of its own panel that it set up, and the whole individual complaints of the Ogoni people that were tendered to this panel has been swept under the carpet. And contrary to general expectation, the panel served as a political laundry for a particular person's image, with aim of imposing a pro- Shell re-entry leadership upon the Ogoni people. (See Appendix D)

9. That the President did promised during his speech to the Nigerian nation on the 3^rd anniversary of his reign as civilian head of the nation, to give the Ogoni leaders that were killed a national heroic status. This would have by implication mean that the killing of Ken Saro Wiwa and others, (the Ogoni nine and the Ogoni four) was the action of the Nigerian State and Shell. (See Appendix D.4)

10. The Nigerian government under President Obasanjo also refused the Ogoni people to receive the corpses of the Ogoni leaders, therefore created great mistrust and division within the Ogoni rank and file with the hope that Ogonis would fight among themselves. The government only released the corpses in 2002 against the desire of the Ogoni people to receive the corpse in the year 2000, and by the time it was released, the leadership of Ogoni has completely been Balkanized according to the desire of the government.

11. Based on the above and other substantial and circumstantial evidences that trails the administration of Obasanjo, we submit that the recent peace committee is not well intentioned and a calculated attempt to lend credence and support to some few individuals against the wish of the generality of the Ogoni people. The second motive of the committee is to make sure that Shell Petroleum Development Company is forced into the Ogoniland.

12. That contrary to the postulation that Shell Petroleum Development Company pulled out of Ogoniland because of crisis in Ogoniland in the early 1990s. It should be known and accepted that, the Ogoni people declared Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, a "person-non-grata", as a way of pressing forward their demands as stated in the Ogoni Bill of Rights.

13. That the process of trying to make SPDC to come back into Ogoni for oil exploration and exploitation after the killing of Ken Saro Wiwa and eight others of the Ogoni leaders. And other thousands of Ogoni people through several ways and methods without respect to the Ogoni Bill of Rights, are certainly nothing but a "back door" and "fly by night" approach.

14. That the Nigerian State since the brief tenure of General Abdulsalem Abubakar had made several frantic but ferocious efforts for SPDC to re-enter Ogoniland while these has always been met with stiff opposition. (See Appendix F.)

15. That the government of Obasanjo in particular has been bent on SPDC resuming business in the Ogoniland as usual without regard to the Ogoni Bill of Rights. The government therefore inherited a specially trained interventionist military troop from its predecessor, Abdulsalem Abubakar in 1999.

16. That this troop, code name, "Operation Fox" later metamorphosed into the present "Operation Sweep" that runs with terroristic briefing to quell and crush by brutality, the proponents of economic justice for the Ogoni people and other Niger Delta Communities alike. This clandestine force was first exposed in The Banner Newspaper of March 19 – 26, 1999. (See Appendix F.1)

17. That the troop was largely responsible for the massacre of the Odi people in Bayesa State, another Oil producing community that shares the same scenario and fate like the Ogoni people. That thousands of people were killed and nothing has been done to that effect. And the killing took place just four months after the government of Obasanjo was sworn in.

18. We wish to draw your attention to the fact that several anti Shell re-entry moves into Ogoniland has occurred since 1999 and that the Nigerian State has always made sure that these protests, which they always respond to with heavy arms and ammunitions are swiftly suppressed. (See Appendix F. 1 –12)

19. And that, there are therefore over 1000 Ogoni people that ran away from within Ogoniland between 1999 to date, as a result of fear for their lives due to the aggressive nature of the Nigerian government under Olusegun Obasanjo.

20. That the government of Obasanjo did use its cross border influence in the ECOWAS nations to make sure that these people are denied protections and refugee rights in Benin Republic particularly.

21. That these people were thrown out of the refugee camp at Kpomasse on the 16^th of September 1999 and that since then, the Nigerian government under Obasanjo has master minded several attempts to either kidnap or kill these people. Because they had since used their exile situation and base to renew and continue to campaign against the Nigerian State and SPDC excesses.

22. That during these past years, these people had made several clarion calls to the international community and several non-governmental organizations have responded by visiting them. Among the organizations that has been to see things in the make shift camps at Ouidah, are the World Relief Organization, the United States Committee for Refugees, and the All-African Conference of Churches. (See appendix B)

23. That the World Relief report was supposedly presented to the former President of USA when he visited Nigeria and for the Ogoni matter to be raised with Obasanjo. (See Appendix B. page 1. Pp.3)

24. That the Nigerian government did not only bar the former USA President from visiting the Niger Delta and Ogoniland when he visited Nigeria in August 2000, the government sent troops into the Republic of Benin to launch attack on the Ogoni people. And that the vehicles that were used for the "operation weep out the refugees" are vehicles that rightly belong to the Rivers State Government of Nigeria with government plate numbers RVSG 155 and RVSG 175.

25. That the evidence of the attack which was foiled through the assistance of the Togo and Congo refugees that joined forces to protect the Ogonis was destroyed through the collaborations of the Nigerian embassy in Cotonou, Benin Republic. One M. A Paragalda of the Nigerian embassy and the UNHCR high commissioner openly and ably worked together on this killer project.

26. The Ogoni Displaced Asylum Seekers and Refugees, based in Ouidah, Benin Republic have during these period experienced torture, attacks, raping of their women, indecent and humiliating treatment in public places. And xenophobia of the highest kind because of the Nigerian insinuation and instigation, which paint the Ogonis as rebels to the people of Benin Republic.

27. Consequently, the Ogoni people have lost several lives, including that of a 29-year-old man, Mr. Sunday Torbira whose corpse is still with the Benin Republic police to this day.

(See Appendix G. 1 – 7, are all written in French)

28. Apart from the calculated attacks being carried out by the government on the people seeking political asylum in Benin Republic and in other west African nations. We also have enough evidences to prove that the Nigerian government is behind the killings in Yeghe, Bo-ue, Kaani 1 and 2, Zaakpon, Kaa, Bori and other parts of Ogoniland, as a way of causing strife that would allow them to fully occupy Ogoniland militarily. This is done with the intention of drilling the Ogoni oil under the cover of a hoax peace keeping operation.

29. We are also recalling that, thirty thousand Ogoni people were displaced in December 1993 through communal and armed soldiers attacks when the present governor of Rivers State, was the deputy governor under the government of General Ibrahim Babaginda. Sophisticated explosives were used against Ogoni people and the government set up a phantom panel of inquiry that no one could tell what happened afterward. Those that were affected are still living on the streets of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria, disposed of their means of living and rendered homeless. This and other crises has made a whole generation of Ogoni people to be rendered homeless, making them a community of street people and cretins both in and outside their homeland.

30. We are also calling the attention of the International Centre for Reconciliation to the fact that, the Ogoni people has a class action case against SDPC in New York, United States of America. Where several of the atrocities committed against the Ogoni people is being looked at

31. We would not fail to add that the setting up of this peace and reconciliation committee followed recent failed attempts by the government and Shell to re-enter Korokoro Tai Oil field. And when it met opposition by the Ogoni people, it is only then that she decided to set up this peace committee and by tying it to the ICR as a way of creating "credibility" that does not exist.

32. And the fact that the government could set up another committee while there is an on going national constitutional reformation debate, prove that the Nigerian government does not trust that the confab would be able to handle the boiling issues in the Ogoni Bill of Rights. Secondly, the Nigerian government has proved that the Ogoni case has not been attended to, contrary to her campaign in the international community. This therefore, means that the case of the Ogoni people in Ouidah should be looked into in the context of what led them into exile and what has been done to them by the government of Obasanjo, otherwise, the ICR would be treating symptoms while the sickness remains.

33. We are also of the strong opinion that the committee is just a face saving device to enable her bust its chance in the campaign for a seat among the two African representatives in the United Nations Security Council. A position, which Nigeria has no moral justification to vie for, if, the world politics would be honest enough to critically view the Nigerian government, at least, in the context of what she is doing to the Ogoni people and other minorities.

34. As an organization that is representing the Displaced Ogoni Asylum Seekers and Refugees in Ouidah, Benin Republic. We state that the Ogoni people has no confidence in the government of Olusegun Obasanjo and any other government that may come after him, if such new government pursues the matter of the Ogoni people in the way that Obasanjo has done. However, because of your involvement, which means that there should be neutrality from your own part, we make the following humble demands on the International Center for Reconciliation:

a. That your center should in the ambit of your mandate and involvement in the Mathew Kukah's committee, consider an investigation into the conditions of the Displaced Ogoni Asylum Seekers and Refugees and the circumstances that led to their fleeing into Benin Republic.

b. That the investigation should also look into the treatment that the United Nation High Commission for Refugees has given to this people in relationship with the false campaign of the Obasanjo government. And in particular, the collaborative persecution melted upon a vulnerable community that needs both security and basic human rights and provisions.

c. That the investigation should also look into the cross border activities of Obasanjo government in its attempts to massacre the Ogoni people in another country, which a is flagrant violation of international law and respect for another nation's sovereignty.

d. That your center should also use your involvement to make recommendation and advocacy over the condition of the Ogoni people in Benin Republic. Because these people fought for their land and their rights and therefore deserve to be part of any over all process of moving forward, if, the government is serious.

e. That the process should also consider the decision of the generality of the Ogoni masses as the final voice in the determinations that you would make during your assignment.

f. To that effect, the ICR should in conjunction with other international NGOs should decide on a means that would determine weather the Ogoni people are willing to deviate from the Ogoni Bill of Rights or if the Bill of Rights still remain their standard of negotiation. Because other than this, the process would rather aggravate the palpable tension in the land instead of solving the problem.

g. The ICR should also not consider the issue of Shell returning into Ogoniland as an issue because that is only an effect and not a cause when the Ogoni struggle is considered broadly.

h. Finally, we are willing to defend and clarify the issues raised in this letter if there are any doubt or uncertainty about the matters therein. We would be glad if called upon to appear before the ICR during this process, but we would not make such representation before the ICR anywhere in Nigeria for obvious reasons, we shall be grateful if the ICR in considering our position would have sessions in Ouidah, Benin Republic.

Thanks

Pastor Barry Barinaadaa Saro Wuganaale

Project Coordinator