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Minority rights threatened in Nigeria

The leader of a minority rights group campaigning against environmental pollution in Nigeria is facing the death penalty. Ken Saro-Wiwa, leader of the Movement for the survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) is accused of incitement to murder four Ogoni chiefs. However, human rights and environmental organisations, including Greenpeace, the Body Shop and Amnesty International, believe that Saro-Wiwa is being targeted for his protests against oil contamination in Ogoniland in southern Nigeria which has reportedly had devastating effects on the environment and public health. Oil is a key source of income for Nigeria.

A Channel Four film shown last year about the oil pollution in Ogoniland has been bought recently by several countries, including Japan, Australia and South Africa, as the campaign to free Saro-Wiwa gathers pace. The film, The Drilling Fields , shows mass demonstrations by peaceful Ogoni protesters, Shell, the major oil company in the area, has been drilling for oil there for 50 years and has reportedly yet to carry out an environmental impact analysis in the region. The company says that it has cleared up some of the oil spills, but the film shows one of these areas where land which suffered major oil leakage was burnt by the company and left polluted.

The film also shows people working, with gas flares from leaking pipes close by. It depicts how crops have suffered, rivers are polluted and oil pipes, sometimes leaking, criss-cross villages. Shell, which has been trying to present itself as an environmentally friendly company in the West, withdrew staff from the area in 1993, saying they had been under attack from Ogoni people. They say that they have been used by MOSOP to gain political advantage within Nigeria. Saro-Wisa accuses Shell of aiding genocide. He says before MOSOP decided to mobilise people against oil pollution, ‘men, women and children were dying slowly, the air and streams were polluted and finally the land itself dies’.

In January, Greenpeace held a demonstration outside the Shell headquarters in London to protest at Shell’s alleged role in oil pollution in Ogoniland and to ask them to intervene to free Ken Saro-Wisa since the company is seen as a voice that the Nigerian authorities might heed. The same day, Greenpeace released an alleged secret government document which showed that the local authorities planned a ‘ruthless military operation’ in Ogoniland to overcome popular opposition to Shell’s operations there. It is claimed that the operation led to the deaths of over 1,000 people.

At a press conference in southern Nigeria in early February, Shell reportedly admitted causing widespread environmental pollution in Ogoniland and said that they would address this.