OBAMA, OTHERS PETITIONED OVER CONDITION OF OGONI PEOPLE

Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People {MOSOP} has indicated that kinsmen and women of Ken Saro-Wiwa, in the Rivers State axis  of Southern Nigeria, are currently living in great fear and  frustration.

This allegation is contained in a Save Our Souls letter to the President of the United States, Mr. Barrack Obama, Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki Moon, and  other world leaders.

Copies of the MOSOP letter were also sent to Nigerian President  Goodluck Jonathan, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human  Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, the United Nations People  Organisation, UNPO, Albania Prime Minister, Antigua and  Barbuda Prime Minister, Argentina President, Armenia President,  and Austria Federal Chancellor.  Others include Azerbaijan President, Barbados Prime Minister.

Others who have also received the petition are Belgium Prime Minister, Brazil President, Bulgaria President,  Canada Prime Minister, Chad President, Chile President,  Colombia President, Costa Rica President, Croatia President,  Czech Republic, Denmark Prime Minister, Dominica President,  and Prime Minister, Dominican Republic President, Ecuador  President, and Egypt President

The rest are leaders of El Salvador, Estonia, Fiji, Finland,  Gabon, Ghana, Georgia, Greece, Greenland, Guatemala,  Hungary, Iceland, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Latvia,  Luxembourg, Maldives, Mauritius, Micronesia, New Zealand,  Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Poland, Romania, Russia, Saint  Lucia, Seychelles, Slovenia, South Korea, South Africa, Sri  Lanka, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Thailand, Trinidad and  Tobago, Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, Yugoslavia, and Zambia.

In the letter, MOSOP alleged that the government of Nigeria and  Rivers State in particular show no pretense in their programme to  dehumanise, deprive and weaken the Ogoni and forcing them to  possible extinction. 'It is difficult to explain the conditions of social,  political, economic and environmental trauma to which they are  being condemned' the petition reads.

According to them, ''like in the 1990s, state authorities and their  agents still sponsor attacks on local communities as strategy of  intimidating, disorganising and breaking people's unity and  resolve.

''In Sogho communities in NyoKhana kingdom of Ogoni, Rivers  State Government has inflicted huge disaster in attempt to force  the people to surrender their farmlands for purported military  camp and banana plantation.

The situation is most shocking,  smacking of deliberate cruelty and abuse on the entire people  and history of Ogoni.

''It started in 2011 when armed mobile police men of the Joint  Task Force (JTF) shot and killed two men in open day light at a  town square meeting.

The men of the JTF had come to the village where the people held meetings to discuss the forceful  survey of their farmlands by soldiers of the Nigerian Army. It is  significant that till today nothing has been done concerning  policemen that killed the innocent Sogho natives in cold blood.

''No serious government can turn its back on the kind of situation in Sogho. We invite people to visit Sogho and see the situation.  We demand that strong judicial investigation be conducted to ascertain the level of killing and destruction in Sogho and those  responsible.'