China, Must Forget Nigeria's Petro-dollar Business, says Indigenous Chief Goodluck Diigbo

President, Partnership for Indigenous Peoples Environment, PIPE an NGO in special consultative status with Economic and Social Council of the United Nations and also President / Spokesman of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP in Nigeria has reaffirmed MOSOP continued rejection of Chinese investment in Nigeria's petroleum sector. In a statement released in The Hague, Netherlands on Christmas day, December 25, 2009 Diigbo said that he viewed the jailing of a world civil society citizen, a leading Chinese nonconformist, Liu Xiaobo, as another reason that Chinese investment was not welcome in Nigeria's petroleum sector, given Chinese incessant violation of the rights of the people of Tibet.

Diigbo denounced the incarceration of Liu Xiaobo, which he considered as the latest example of Chinese restriction on individual “reason and conscience” and continued threat to the “foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” MOSOP President asked the international community to show in action that concern for Chinese continued disregard of Article one of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948, was unacceptable.

“My concern,” as MOSOP president, is that the oil and gas rich Ogoniland was currently targeted by Chinese Big Oil that has probably entered into bilateral agreement with the Nigerian authorities. “If China, a member of the United Nations Security Council cannot respect individual right to reason and conscience as already demonstrated towards the people of Tibet and its other citizens, then no one can be compelled to respect the Universal Declaration of Human Rights intended to prevent rebellion and bloody conflicts.” It is essential, if Chinese citizens or other peoples defending human rights and fundamental freedoms are not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to uprising against tyranny and oppression, that the United Nations act to sustain its good faith Universal Declaration, Diigbo remarked.

Emma Mpeba, Jnr., MOSOP Media Director