Shed No More Innocent Blood
“Ken Saro-Wiwa was innocent. Those who sincerely believe in his cause cannot but, support the Ogoni Self-Government. It is the reason I could have been hanged alongside Ken. We fought for self-government to control our land. With the level of environmental devastation in Ogoniland now well known, the world is no longer in doubt why we fought.
We can't find peace unless; political leaders and oil companies end the killing of the innocent, whose ghosts continually haunt this Planet for its crooked way of seeking control over others' natural resources,” Declared MOSOP President and Spokesman, Dr. Goodluck Diigbo, the successor of Saro-Wiwa.
He was addressing thousands of his fellow Ogoni people today, November 10, 2013 via phone from New York. They had gathered at the Ken Saro-Wiwa Peace and Freedom Center, Bori, headquarters of Ogoniland to mark the 18th Anniversary of the hanging of Ogoni Nine, which took place in Port Harcourt, Nigeria on the 10thof November 1995.
The “Ogoni Nine” were nine activists, including, Saro-Wiwa – the playwright and Nobel Prize nominee executed trumped up charges for speaking out against corruption, forceful seizure of lands and environmental devastation.
While we will listen and learn from others at the proposed Sovereign National Conference, our primary agenda is to determine Nigeria's future. We will continue to operate our self-Government, which was declared on the 2nd of August of 2012. According to him, “this means that Ogoni will re-negotiate a balanced relationship with Nigeria for mutual respect.”
“Nothing in our participation at the Conference may be construed as diminishing or extinguishing the Ogoni Self-Government. We are going to affirm that we are equal to all other ethnic tribes in Nigeria, big or small. “For the sake of peaceful co-existence and security, we will invoke article 8 (b) of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which supports our position to make sure Nigeria avoid any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing Ogonis of their lands, territories or resources, or tampering with sweet crude oil, natural gas or others without prior informed consent of the Ogoni people,” Diigbo stated among others.
He announced that the Ogoni Central Indigenous Authority (OCIA) will through its 272 village councils conduct elections to elect eight delegates drawn from Ban Ogoi, Babbe, Bori National Territory, Eleme, Gokana, KenKhana, Nyokhana and Tai. Those elected will choose from among themselves, one official delegate and seven in advisory capacity.
Diigbo ruled out any talk about Ogoni State, saying it would be stupid to talk about state creation, where representatives represent ethnic nations or nationalities, and not the 36 illegitimate States, which should be phased out. He said that those states “were mostly created on the basis of man-know-man, military influence, bribery and corruption.”
“We want to relate to other nations such as Yoruba, Igbo, Izon, Hausa, Fulani, Tiv, among others, not ill-conceived waste pipes, called States,” Diigbo added.
Contact: Tambari Deekor,
Associate Editor,
MOSOP Media,
[email protected]