Nigeria: On the Anniversary of Ken Saro-Wiwa's Execution, Human Rights Organizations Call for Reform

Press release

By: Amnesty International

Date: November 6, 1996

Source: Amnesty International. "Nigeria: On the Anniversary of Ken Saro-Wiwa's Execution, Human Rights Organizations Call for Reform." November 6, 1996. 〈http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAFR440261996〉 (accessed May 1, 2006).

About the Author: Amnesty International, started in 1961 by British attorney Peter Benenson is an independent, worldwide movement of people who campaign for human rights. The organization has more than 1.8 million members in 150 countries and territories. It won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977.

INTRODUCTION

A writer of satirical novels and plays, Ken Saro-Wiwa had achieved worldwide fame when he and eight fellow members of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People were hanged by the government of Nigeria on November 10, 1995 for environmental activism. Saro-Wiwa had spoken out against the exploitation of the Ogoni by the Royal Dutch Shell oil company in collaboration with the Nigerian government. His killing for reportedly murdering four of his Ogoni kinsmen sparked international outrage.

Born in Bane in Khana Local council of Rivers State in Nigeria's Niger Delta region, Saro-Wiwa had spent years campaigning against the ravages of uncontrolled oil development. He accused successive military governments and the giant Shell oil of contaminating the land of 500,000 Ogoni tribespeople. He charged them with committing "environmental genocide" against the Ogoni for depriving them of their means of livelihood—farming and fishing. Saro-Wiwa spearheaded a worldwide campaign to give the impoverished delta communities more access to the wealth produced on their land.

In 1994, the government of General Sani Abacha arrested Saro-Wiwa and fellow activists Dr. Barinem Kiobel, Saturday Dorbee, Paul Levura, Nordu Eawo, Felix Nuate, Daniel Gboko, John Kpuine, and Baribor Bera. The men were held without charges for more than a year. They were allegedly tortured, denied medical and legal aid, and deprived of contact with their families. In the meantime, Saro-Wiwa was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize. As international calls for the release of the Ogoni Nine mounted, the group was accused of conspiring to murder four Ogoni activists. The resulting trial before a military tribunal was widely condemned as flawed and unfair. After their convictions, the men were denied all rights of appeal and hanged. The executions were so politically sensitive that Nigerian government officials refused to disclose the burial location or turn the bodies over to relatives. They feared that the graves would become a rallying point for anti-government activists. In November 2004, the remains of the Ogoni Nine were exhumed and returned to their families. Despite widespread rumors that bodies were bathed in acid and burned, the bodies showed no indication of mutilation.

PRIMARY SOURCE

Lagos—[alternatively Johannesburg]—On the eve of the first anniversary of the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, Amnesty International, together with Nigerian human rights organizations, today called on the Nigerian government to end human rights violations.

An Amnesty International delegation is in the country to mark the 10th November anniversary, and to launch a campaign against human rights violations in Nigeria. Nigerian human rights organizations such as the Civil Liberties Organisation and the Constitutional Rights Project are supporting the campaign.

Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight colleagues cannot be brought back to life, said Pierre Sané, Secretary General of Amnesty International, at a press conference. The best way to respond to the injustice of their trials and executions is for Nigerians to pledge that it will never happen again and then to take the necessary steps to ensure that it does not.

The Nigerian authorities clear disregard for the most basic and fundamental rights of their people can only result in scepticism about its proposed transition to civilian government by October 1998. One year after the trials, governments worldwide should be keeping up the pressure for improvement in the human rights situation and accept nothing less than substantial reforms from General Abachas government.

In new reports issued today, Amnesty International and the Nigerian human rights organizations are putting forward a ten point program for human rights reform. This program includes the release of all prisoners of conscience, the revocation of all military decrees which allow the indefinite or incommunicado imprisonment of political prisoners, the guarantee of fair trials for political prisoners, safeguards against torture and ill-treatment and abolition of the death penalty.

Despite the international outcry and condemnation of the executions, the situation in Nigeria remains grave, Mr. Sané said. Nigerians who have the courage to stand up for the human rights of their fellow citizens continue to pay a heavy price. Human rights defenders and journalists have been singled out for beatings, detention and harassment.

Former head of state General Olusegun Obasanjo and human rights defender Dr. Beko Ransome-Kuti remain imprisoned after secret and unfair trials by special military tribunals. Others have been detained for long periods without charge or trial. Many have been held in harsh conditions, denied the support of families and lawyers, their lives at risk from malnutrition and medical neglect.

Supporters of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) continue to face heavy repression by the authorities. At least nineteen Ogoni still face the prospect of unfair trial and execution on the same murder charges which were brought against Ken Saro-Wiwa, President of MOSOP, and his co-defendants. The government has made little progress towards bringing the Ogoni ninenteen to trial and has held them in such terrible prison conditions that one of them died in August 1995 and others are said to be in serious ill-health.

Amnesty International is particularly critical of the Civil Disturbances Special Tribunal which tried Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other Ogoni. Measures announced following a critical UN report in May 1996 have done little to reform the Tribunal. The removal of the one military member from the Tribunal does not affect the governments direct control over it while the right of appeal granted in July 1996 to prisoners convicted by future Civil Disturbance Special Tribunals allows an appeal only to another hand-picked special tribunal, a Special Appeal Tribunal, not to an independent higher court in the normal judicial system. Its convictions and sentences must still be confirmed by the military government.

Given that the Nigerian government appears unprepared to genuinely reform the Ogoni Civil Disturbances Special Tribunal, it should be abolished before the nineteen Ogoni prisoners suffer the same fate as Ken Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues, Mr. Sané said. Although there have been releases of a few detainees, measures announced by the government as reforms are a sham.

The government has revoked one military decree which specifically abolished the right of habeas corpus but has continued to flout court orders to release detainees or bring them before the court by invoking other military decrees which remove the courts jurisdiction. The promised reviews of political detentions have not been undertaken by an independent, judicial body but in secret by the security officials who ordered the detentions in the first place. The latest review panel announced in October 1996 is headed by senior security officers and its recommendations have to be approved by the head of state. Chief Gani Fawehinmi's detention was reportedly extended after such a secret review, which confers no rights on the detainee and does not prevent arbitrary and indefinite detention.

SIGNIFICANCE

The death of Saro-Wiwa has not changed much in Nigeria. The man who ordered his death, General Sani Abacha died suddenly of heart failure on June 8, 1998. Elections in May 1999 elevated a civilian to the presidency and ended sixteen years of consecutive military rule. However, corruption is so endemic that Nigeria's government is commonly referred to as a "kleptocracy." The civilian rulers have been unable to cure Nigeria of widespread poverty. Although the country is oil-rich, the wealth is still not filtering down to the people. In 2005, sixty-six percent of Nigeria's 110 million people lived below the poverty line. The Ogoni continue to complain that their land is devastated by Shell. The flaring of gas, sometimes in the middle of villages, has destroyed wildlife and plant life, poisoned the atmosphere, and made the residents half-deaf and prone to respiratory diseases. The problems that consumed Saro-Wiwa have not been resolved.

As of the early twenty-first century, in the absence of government programs, the major multinational oil companies launched their own community development programs. A new entity, the Niger Delta Development Committee, was created to help catalyze economic and social development in the region. At the same time, youths demanding jobs and more stake in Nigeria's wealth sporadically seized oil workers and oil installations. Anti-Western terrorists attacked oil pipelines running through Nigeria. The country's future is in doubt.

FURTHER RESOURCES

Books

Eshiet, Imo, Onookome Okome and Felix Akpan, eds. Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Discourse of Ethnic Minorities in Nigeria. Calabar, Nigeria: University of Calabar Press, 1999.

McLuckie, Craig W. and Audrey McPhail, eds. Ken Saro-Wiwa: Writer and Political Activist. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2000.

NaAllah, Abdul-Rasheed, ed. Ogoni's Agonies: Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Crisis in Nigeria. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1998.

Wiwa, Ken. In the Shadow of a Saint: A Son's Journey to Understand His Father's Legacy. South Royalton, VT: Steerforth Press, 2001.