Thinking of The Ogoni 4

Comfort Obi

The people of Ogoni, Rivers State, must be grinning from ear to ear. Their eyes must be glittering. The very emotional ones amongt them, perhaps, are shedding tears of joy. And for the elite among them, especially, the silver-spoon children of the late writer and environmentalist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, I am green with envy at the number of champagne bottles they must have popped. And their lawyers? I can imagine the back-slapping they are giving to one another. All of them must be very happy. They are celebrating. And enjoying the limelight. They should.
This is a windfall. In this period of job losses, and economic meltdown, when banks and blue chip companies are cutting costs, closing down, and declaring bankruptcy, and people owed salaries, they have become millionaires in dollars. Okay, I take that back. They have each become a millionaire, 50 times over, in Naira. Meaning that each of them just got a little less than a million dollars!
In a historic, unprecedented bargaining, and out-of-court settlement, British oil giant, Shell, has agreed to pay 10 Ogoni families, a whooping $15.5 million (N2.3billion). The Ogoni 10 instituted the court case in the USA against Shell 14 years ago. Out of the 10 were the families of the nine Ogoni indigenes, including Saro-Wiwa, who were hanged in 1994 by the Nigerian government led by the late General Sani Abacha. The 10th person is Karalolo Kogbara, who in 1993, lost an arm after she was shot by Nigerian troops while protesting against the bulldozing of her village in order to, allegedly, make way for a Shell oil pipeline. Now, mercifully, even though it can never be the same, she can buy the best artificial arm ever produced.
In instituting the case, the Ogoni 10 accused Shell of complicity in the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa and co. by the Abacha government. They insisted that the hanging of the men was a calculated judicial murder. I now don’t know how Kogbara made this list. Because, obviously, her case is different from that of Saro-Wiwa and Co. If I understand it, her case is directly connected with activities concerning Shell. I have not been privileged to read the case file of the Ogoni 9 which made Shell go to the negotiating table. But from all I have read in the national newspapers so far, the main case of the families of the Ogoni 9 was the hanging of their breadwinners by the Abacha government. For the purpose of the title of this write-up, I intend to restrict myself to the Ogoni 9. And I will start by congratulating those who instituted this case against Shell. They have set a precedent. They have told those Nigerians who, atimes, are oppressed, and abused, and their rights trampled upon by foreign companies operating in Nigeria, that if the Nigerian government looks elsewhere, as it often does, with good legal advice, and bargaining power, they can get justice elsewhere. Even though Shell strongly denied complicity in the killing of the Ogoni 9, a number of their actions in the region is actionable.
On a number of times, we read about the abusive environment under which Nigerians work in their own country in foreign-owned companies. A good number of those companies are okay, but most of them are discriminatory. Salaries are not the same. Allowances are not the same. Even staff hospitals are not the same. In Nigeria, they practice apartheid against Nigerian citizens. I have heard, but cannot confirm, that even staff canteens are not the same. Oil companies are the worst culprits. In the areas where they operate, they are not responsible corporate citizens. Their staff, especially expatriate staff members, live in splendour amongst the villagers who live in squalor. They have everything – water and electricity – while the villages where they operate have none. Yet those good things of life they are enjoying were supplied by what rightly belongs to the people. It is cruel, to put it mildly. Instead of being good corporate citizens, they decide to settle a few traditional chiefs, and government officials, who look elsewhere while their people die of hunger, preventable, and curable diseases.
I have often heard that some of the amenities, especially roads, hospitals, and schools are not provided because the natives prefer cash to those, and frustrate the provisions. But how much is the cash? And are those through which the cash is allegedly passed, distributing it equitably? I will be surprised. The Niger Delta is dotted by several selfish, and self-centred individuals who parade themselves as elders and leaders. They thrive, while their people suffer. They use their people as bargaining chips. They enjoy the best of life, secure prime jobs for some of their children, send others abroad, and reduce the children of the poor to vagabonds, Ogogoro drinkers, and ne’re-do-wells. From whichever way one looks at it, oil companies have not been fair to the natives. The little they are doing now is because the people have woken up, have known their rights, have known that they are being exploited, and cheated, and have known that it is not the same in other parts of the world. Which is why it is very sad that an otherwise justified agitation, and protest, by the Niger Deltans, against the criminal neglect of the region by successive Nigerian governments, have been hijacked, and rubbished by criminals. So, now, the region is fast losing support of even its ardent sympathisers, and the civilised world. Now, when you mention Niger Delta what comes to mind are the kidnappings, the torture, the robbery, the killing, the maiming, and the raping of innocent people, including foreigners, children, women, and the very aged. What comes to mind is the wanton destruction of even the little infrastructures they have. Nothing justifies this. But I digress. It is a matter for another day. I was talking about the Ogoni 9, which include Saro-Wiwa. And this write-up, as the title indicates, is about the forgotten Ogoni 4.
I don’t know if I am wrong, and I pray I am. I mean, I am not a lawyer. But from what I am reading in the newspapers, it does seem that the families of the Ogoni 9 sued Shell over its alleged complicity in the hanging of their beloved ones. I don’t know if they sued for other alleged abuses in the Niger Delta. If they did, nobody is mentioning that. The emphasis has been on the hanging of the Ogoni 9. It is this emphasis that prompted this write-up. In writing this, I only want to remind us of the Ogoni 4. And in doing that, joggle our minds a little on why Saro-Wiwa and co were arrested, and hanged in what has been rightly termed judicial murder by most people.
As a young reporter, I covered the grissly, cruel, heartless, and unprecedented murder, by a mob, of arguably four of the best brains from Ogoni. They were Chief Edward Kobani, a former Rivers State Commissioner, Chief Albert Barde, a perfect gentleman, and a former Secretary to the Rivers State Government. The other two were the Orage brothers, Chiefs Simon and Theophilus Orage. I remember that another Kobani – I forget his name now – survived that grissly murder. I remember being overcome by emotion as I interviewed him on May 22, 1994, a day after he witnessed the killing of the Ogoni 4. He survived by running into a shrine, and holding unto a tree in the shrine. The mob, which held the shrine in so much reverence, did not dare enter there to drag him out. Yet, Barde, who ran into a church was dragged out and killed in a manner God would never forgive his murderers. One other fine gentleman who survived the murder was Ignatius Kogbara, a former Federal Secretary (Minister). He was going to the same meeting, a meeting of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), when he ran into the mob. His driver miraculously made a U-turn, and drove at a speed that would make Formular One drivers green with envy. The wicked mob gave hot pursuit, hurling clubs, bottles, and stones at the car! I remember that the Ogoni 4, who were killed at Gioko in Ogoni, were holding a meeting when they were dragged out, and murdered with irons, bottles, hoes, clubs, spat at by even women, and matcheted to death as they pleaded for their lives from their supposed brothers and sisters. Barde, for example, was asthmatic. As they dragged him out, beating him so mercilessly, he had an asthma attack. In that moment of dangling between life and death, he weakly reached for his Inhaler which was in his pocket. But a woman snatched it from him, and either slapped, or spat at him. A couple of years back, I read, in tears, the account of Barde’s son, in one of the national dailies, of how his father was killed; how much pain, trauma, and suffering he passed through before he finally took his last breath. I now don’t know if their families picked any part of their bodies to bury. From accounts, they were finally burnt to death after all the unimaginable torture. The families buried, perhaps, empty caskets, or just ashes.
For the records, the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), was not founded by Ken Saro-Wiwa and co. It was founded by the Ogoni 4, Kogbara, and others. It was allegedly hijacked by the younger people, led by Saro-Wiwa, who then declared the founders weak, and for whatever reasons, saboteurs. They were eventually nick-named vultures, and finally killed at Gioko on that unbelievable day of May 21, 1994. The younger people were, of course, more militant in their demands of Ogoni rights than their elder brothers, the founders of MOSOP. And even though MOSOP had always claimed that it is a non-violent movement, stories were told, then, of some of the organisation's alleged unwholesome behaviour which, allegedly, included torturing anyone who disagreed with them, or their methods. It was because of the grissly murder of the Ogoni 4 that Ken Saro-Wiwa and co. were arrested, tried and eventually hanged!
Let me quickly add that I also covered the trial of Saro-Wiwa and co. in Port Harcourt. I listened to the murder allegations against them. I got away with the impression that none of them, except Ledum Mitee, who was eventually discharged, and acquitted, had any sympathy for the Ogoni 4, or their families. It was like, indeed, vultures were killed. I don’t now recollect all the proceedings, but I remember that one of the strongest allegations against them was that they engineered the mob, by their inciting utterances, to attack the Ogoni 4. It is debatable whether they knew the mob could go as far as killing them. Truth is, when a mob is in action, nobody can predict the outcome. Stories were rife, that time, that Saro-Wiwa and some others were those who allegedly got to a market square, when they were campaigning for Saro-Wiwa, for a seat at the Abacha-contrived Constitutional Conference, and were stopped by the police who told them it was past campaign time. In anger, they allegedly made inciting statements. Saro-Wiwa, allegedly, raised his hands up, and shouted, that he was being stopped from campaigning when those Vultures were meeting. That allegedly triggered the mob action. True, neither Saro-Wiwa, nor the others took part in the killing. True, neither of them went with the mob to the venue of the meeting. True, they were not on the spot. But the questions remain: Who engineered the mob by making inciting statements? What led to the mob action?
Truth is, I never ever expected the death sentences passed on Saro-Wiwa and co. I expected a lesser punishment, probably jail terms. I was aghast, therefore, when the death sentence, by hanging, was pronounced. I unknowingly jumped up from my seat in the tribunal room, in shock. But I always believed that an appeal court would over-turn the death sentence, and give them a lesser punishment. Unfortunately, Abacha was so impatient, so blood-thirsty, that he murdered the men before they appealed. That singular action gave the impression that he wanted the people, especially, Saro-Wiwa out of the way.
While rejoicing with the families of the Ogoni 9 over this unprecedented cash settlement by Shell – consolatory as it is, because no amount of money is greater than life – I really do wish that a thought is spared for the families of the Ogoni 4 as we clap, wine and back-slap over this out-of-court victory. The questions I want asked, and answered, are: Without the Ogoni 4, would there have been the Ogoni 9? Who engineered the murder of the Ogoni 4? What circumstances led to their grissly murder? Has any compensation been paid to their families? Has anybody thought about their families, and how they are surviving? What crime(s) did they commit against their brothers, sisters, and Ogoniland? In celebrating and applauding this judgement, I urge all Ogoni people to spare a thought for the Ogoni 4.
The Ogoni 10 have already shared the money. According to published reports, the sum of $8.5 million will go into a Trust Fund called Kiisi, and legal fees. While the sum of $7million will be shared by the 10 plaintiffs representing the Ogoni 10. Nobody has remembered the families of the Ogoni 4, except Mitee. In applauding the judgement, he said: “… the compensation now is for the main plaintiffs in the matter, but there is the larger interest we should extend it to. It should also be extended to the families of Ogoni 4 in the case, and the general Ogonis who were affected by the problem? I wish the plaintiffs would listen to Mitee. I just wish.