The Ogoni
Solidarity Forum (OSF) has urged President Goodluck Jonathan to expand
the ongoing Amnesty Programme for rehabilitating Niger Delta militants,
to include an estimated 800 Ogoni people who have been in refugee camps
in the Republic of Benin since 1997.
The group said in a
letter to the Presidency that the displaced Ogoni indigenes should be
allowed to benefit from the skills training, scholarship programmes,
and capacity development projects in foreign countries where disarmed
militants are sent for training.
The group said
though the entire Niger Delta fought a bitter war of survival against
oppression, the militants have become the only beneficiaries. It
reminded the president that, “The Ogoni ethnic nationality constituted
a formidable unit in the liberation of the region from oppression
instigated by oil multinationals.” It also described its role in
challenging Shell, a company it described as an agent of imperialism.
In the letter which was signed by its top officials, including Barry
Barinaadaa Wuganaale and Dorathy Barry, International Coordinator, and
Women Coordinator respectively, the group said, “if the on-going
amnesty programme and rehabilitation of former militants is to
discourage violence and encourage constructive engagement…and advance
the cause of the Niger Delta, the Ogoni activists who were victims of
violence perpetrated by the state and Shell cannot then be excluded
from the process.”
The letter reads
“it will be a betrayal of the philosophy of the current administration
if Ogoni activists that had refused to subscribe to violence all
through the span of their struggle are conspicuously ignored in the
attempt to usher in sanity in the agitations for the development of the
Niger Delta. “
The group reminded President Jonathan that, “the Ogoni led by the
late Ken Saro-Wiwa under the auspices of the Movement for the Survival
of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) itemized the legitimate concerns of the
people which included the need for Constitutional reforms to establish
and guarantee the indigenous status of the Ogoni ethnic group within
Nigerian federation, enshrinement of policies that redresses
institutional practice which empowers the central government to
expropriate land in order to drill crude oil, and a demand for a fare
share of the profits that accrued from crude oil drilled from Ogoni
territory over 33 years.”
