By Chido Onumah
On November 10, 1995, a horrifying event took place in Port-Harcourt,
the oil city in South-south Nigeria. It was the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa,
internationally acclaimed author and environmental rights activists and eight
of his compatriots. Two years after, echoes of that mindless and depraved
application of state power still reverberate around the world.
The international community is justifiably appalled and concerned now
as it was two years ago when the murders occurred. It is not the novelty or
cruelty of the deaths (Saro-Wiwa was reported to have given in only after the
fifth attempt of the hangman) or the fact that nine innocent souls were wasted;
after all, military regimes in Nigeria have turned the country into a killing
field and made a vocation of murdering Nigerians depending on their whims.
Those murders were a measure of how nauseatingly murderous and
despicably arrogant the Abacha junta has become and the extent it would go in
the pursuit of its imaginary enemies. They showed the degree to which the junta
could imperil Nigerians and Nigeria, as it has done in keeping the winner of
the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Chief M.K.O. Abiola, in prison since
June 1994. They also confirm the regime’s lack of commitment (except through
hostage taking and assassination) to the resolution of the political problems in
Nigeria; problems that were caused by the avarice and inordinate ambition of a
discredited military cabal.
Saro-Wiwa and his compatriots stood for many things, not the least
was the impetus they gave their Ogoni nationality in its struggle for
self-determination and against environmental degradation; a struggle borne out
of the need to extricate itself from the clutches of internal colonialism and
the booby trap which Nigeria has become.
Abacha showed no scruples in the Saro-Wiwa case and he is even less circumspect
now; for him power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Clearly, his reign of terror is
not limited to vanquishing minority rights activists. Between November 10,
1995, and now, many more unresolved politically induced assassinations,
including that of Kudirat Abiola, wife of Chief Abiola, have taken place. So
well has the Nigerian state honed its repressive apparatus that it is not
content slaying innocent Nigerians at home, but has to go in search of
its perceived enemies beyond the frontiers of Nigeria to the
furthermost parts of the earth.
Sembene Ousmane was right when he noted that, “Power is a citadel, you
must be granted admittance. If you force your way in, you’ll have to use
violence to remain”. Notwithstanding the campaigns of various countries and
international rights groups engaged in undiluted condemnation of the Abacha
regime, it continues its recourse to violence and intimidation, its vicious
campaign of arrest and detention without trial. Put in another term, the public
must be reduced to apathy and subservience for these infernal violators of
human rights to maintain their stranglehold on power.
Just like every other bankrupt dictatorship, the current
dictatorship in Nigeria is making a benevolent gift of democracy to Nigerians. However,
Abacha remains undecided, or so he claims, whether to be a judge in his own
case by contesting the hoax of an election scheduled for October 1998. Listen
to the head of Nigeria’s ignoble military regime in an interview with Radio
Nigeria some weeks ago:
“We have heard their request, it is a very difficult
request, (in reference to some duplicitous traditional rulers calling on Abacha
to run for president) it is something one has to think about…we pray that God
will guide us so that whatever God decides will be in the best interest of all
of us.”
Abacha who seized power in the chaos precipitated by the annulment of
the June 12, 1993 election which he and his predecessor engineered cannot now
claim to be under the direction of God. Abacha’s greatest problem is how to
reconcile his ambition and the fervent desires of Nigerians to be rid of the
embers of an ossified dictatorship and usher in democracy and freedom.
The justifiable struggle by Nigerians against a desperate military dictatorship
shows that when a people are denied justice and freedom for so long they are
forced to struggle to regain same. It was in one of such struggles against
these latter-day fascists that Saro-Wiwa and his compatriots met their deaths.
As we remember them two years after, we cannot but wonder how many more
Nigerians have to die before Abacha and his goons fulfill their ambitions.
We cannot talk about Saro-Wiwa and his compatriots without talking
about the collapse of the Nigerian state. Their deaths remind us of not only
our inadequacies as a nation and how our duplicity, complicity and oppressive
tactics can only create more deaths, but the fact that there is nothing
sacrosanct about the monstrosity called Nigeria.
Not minding Abacha’s claims about democracy, it is clear through his
dubious transition programme that in the months ahead, his regime will trample
on the rights of Nigerians to freely elect their leaders. It is, therefore, not
surprising that two years after Saro-Wiwa, Ogoniland remains uninhabitable
because of oil pollution and an overbearing military presence. Shell’s
monstrous instruments of death still dot every nook and cranny of the oil
community.
Today, numerous Ogoni citizens, pro-democracy and human rights
activists are languishing in Abacha’s dungeons. In Abacha’s perception of
justice, no trial is needed, neither are victims entitled to know their
offences. Not even the decadent Apartheid regime in South Africa could have
been so cynically brutal.
Four years after Abacha seized power, it has become evident that military
dictatorship in Nigeria is a spent force and has no relevance.
But, it has to take the efforts of the likes of Saro-Wiwa and
company to make this reality sink in. We remember the “Ogoni 9” as if it was yesterday
when their pains and anguish at the hands of the gruesome hangmen of a regime
of equal status brought tears to our eyes and created deep gulfs in our hearts.
Adieu Saro-Wiwa, Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul
Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel, and John Kpuine as well as
other unsung heroes and heroines of the struggle for democracy, freedom and
justice in Nigeria, all for whom Abacha’s regime meant one thing: horrid death.
May your spirits not rest in peace but continue to haunt your bloodthirsty
murderers.
This piece is excerpted from the book, Nigeria is Negotiable. It is
reproduced here to mark the 18th anniversary (November 10, 2013) of the execution of
writer and environmentalist, Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists.
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