The Ogoni people are an indigenous people in South-Eastern Nigeria, in the Niger Delta. They represent around 1 percent of the Nigerian population and are a ethno-linguistic group. The Ogoni have, since the independence of Nigeria, suffered under systematic political marginalisation and environmental degradation of their ancestral lands. A major factor in this is the Nigerian federal governments’ exploitation of natural resources in tandem with Western energy giants in the region of Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta region.
Indeed, the main struggle after the Ogoni’s turn towards organised activism in 1993 has been the demand for compensation from Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell for pollution and environmental damage caused by the company’s oil drilling and dilapidated pipeline infrastructure leading to devastating oil spills. The Ogoni’s peaceful civil resistance movement is organised by the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). Their protests are regularly met with strong counter-insurgency measures by the Nigerian Federal government, the military government before that, and the security forces of the oil companies in question. The zenith of this violent crackdown came when Ken Saro-Wiwa, then Vice-President of the UNPO, was executed after a sham trial, despite widespread international condemnation.
19 March 2018 – MOSOP calls for international community to intervene after Amnesty International releases a report showing negligence of energy companies when extracting resources, resulting in several deaths.
15 February 2018 – MOSOP releases statement vowing to stop Shell’s continued efforts to exploit their lands According to MOSOP, Shell still has no moral or legal authority to re-commence oil drilling in the region, as they hold Shell directly responsible for the murder of their leaders.
19 January 2018 – MOSOP calls on Nigerian Government to halt use of Nigerian army to secure oil fields in Ogoniland for multi-national companies.
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