NNIMMO Bassey: Echoes of an ecological war
The world’s
addiction to fossil fuels put the hangman’s noose around the neck of
Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni leaders on 10 November, 1995. That
noose was tightened under the watch of Shell through a kangaroo
military tribunal rigged by the worst dictator Nigeria ever had. Today,
we can say that every oil rig that sucks oil in the Niger Delta is a
hangman’s noose around the necks of the suffering peoples and
communities.
Today, we all stand
before history. We stand in front of a backdrop of injustice,
oppression, and ecological genocide – not just historical, but current,
and it is the threat of its progressing into the future that we must
stand together to fight.
In his statement
after the verdict of guilt was passed on him, Ken Saro-Wiwa declared,
“We all stand before history… appalled by the denigrating poverty of
peoples who live in richly endowed lands.”
We stand distressed
by “their political marginalization and economic strangulation, angered
by the devastation of their land and their ultimate heritage.”
He went on to call
for “a fair and just democratic system which protects everyone and
every ethnic group, and gives us all a valid claim to human
validation.”
Ken Saro-Wiwa’s
words, though spoken fifteen years ago, still ring true in our ears
today. A man with a keen sense of history, he told the agents of the
military dictator that he and his colleagues were not the only ones on
trial. Hear him: “Shell is here on trial, and it is as well that it is
represented by counsel said to be holding a watching brief… The
company has, indeed, ducked this particular trial, but its day will
surely come, and the lessons learnt here may prove useful to it, for
there is no doubt in my mind that the ecological war that the company
has waged in the Delta will be called to question sooner than later and
the crimes of that war be duly punished. The crime of the company’s
dirty wars against the Ogoni people will also be punished.”
A man of history
Saro-Wiwa was
indeed a man of history. While shackled in one military jail or
another, the world recognised his worth and the validity of the Ogoni
struggles. In the last months of his life on earth, he won several
awards in recognition of his just struggles: the Fonlon-Nichols Award
for excellence in creative writing and the struggle for human rights;
the 1994 Right Livelihood Award or Alternative Nobel Prize for Peace;
the 1995 Goldman Environmental Prize, the most prestigious
environmental award in the world; the eight Bruno-Kreisky Foundation
Award for human rights; the 1995 British Environmental ad Media Special
Awareness Award; and the Hammett Award for Human Rights of Human Rights
Watch.
The Students Union
of the Ahmadu Bello University in Nigeria conferred on him the award of
Grand Commander of the Oppressed Masses. Surely, none of these could
have been given to a man of mean repute.
Standing on the
shoulders of history, we see clearly the beginnings of the trials that
were bound to expose those who have waged ecological wars against the
Ogoni people, the peoples of the Niger Delta and elsewhere in the
world. We continue to see a company like Shell bowing before courts and
before the Stock Exchanges in North America, accepting out of court
settlements, and paying fines to avoid prosecution on bribery and
corruption charges.
In 2005, they also
admitted to having falsified their crude oil reserve figures the
previous year, and paid some hefty fines to cover that up. Recent
reports have it that they are halting suits over bribery by paying some
fines. Last year, they agreed in a New York court to pay over $15
million to Ogoni litigants for human rights abuses.
In all these, we
are confident that the words of Ken Saro-Wiwa will come to pass. One
day, the eco devourers will have their day in the dock. And this is
already happening in The Hague, where three Niger Delta communities are
suing Shell for environmental degradation.
Perpetual death
The dominant
predatory production and consumption patterns in the world, and the
myth that crude oil is a cheap form of energy, has meant perpetual
death sentence on communities where there is crude oil and gas.
If good men like
Ken Saro-Wiwa had stayed silent and allowed the pattern of
environmental degradation by oil extractive activities to go on
unchallenged in Ogoni land, it is conceivable that things would have
been worse by now.
Today, on account
of the massive oil spills, gas flares, and careless handling of other
industry-related toxic pollutants, life expectancy in the Niger Delta
has plummeted to 41 years. If Ken Saro-Wiwa had not started the
struggle, perhaps life expectancy would have possibly nose-dived to 20
years.
We stand before
history and affirm that a sane future must be built on the platform of
solidarity, dignity, and respect for the rights of Mother Earth.
We demand an end to
fossil fuel addiction: be it crude oil, tar sands, or coal. We call for
a Sabbath of rest for Mother Earth. Over the years, she has been
abused, raped, and exploited and it is time to say enough is enough.
The blood of Ken
Saro-Wiwa and all those massacred in the ecological wars for crude oil
cry out today in demand for remaining oil to be left in the soil. With
less than 40 percent of crude oil still left in the soil, it is
foolishness to insist that we can go on driving on this dreg through
eternity.
