by Jibunma Anthony-Spinks

On October 6, 1889, the German geologist, Hans Meyer, planted the German imperial flag on the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro in present-day Tanzania, renamed Tanganyika by the British. This singular symbolic act laid the foundation for colonial exploitation of the entire territories of East Africa for more than a century.

Tanzania’s independence movement started in 1954. It was led by a school teacher, Julius Nyerere. He campaigned for Tanganyikan independence from the British Empire and won the general election to become Prime Minister in 1960. When Tanganyika gained its independence, the summit of Kilimanjaro was renamed again as part of the decolonization process. This time, it was appropriately named Uhuru Peak, meaning “freedom” in Swahili. The name represents the hard-earned freedom of Tanzania and Africa from colonial masters. The Republic of Tanzania proudly gained its independence in 1961 at the same time as many of its neighbouring countries with that of Nigeria coming a year earlier. Tanzania’s national flag was hoisted on the mountain, along with the Uhuru torch in fulfilment of Nyerere’s prophetic proclamation: “We will light a candle on top of Mount Kilimanjaro which will shine beyond our borders, giving hope where there is despair, love where there is hate, and dignity where before there was only humiliation.”

But decades after the so-called Independence of African nation-states, has this humiliation occasioned by western imperialists and their black apologists ended in the African continent? Of course, it is not yet Uhuru.

From about 1991 Ken Saro-Wiwa took up the struggle. He devoted himself full-time to the causes of the Ogoni, a minority ethnic group that numbered about 500,000 people, under the auspices of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). In particular, he focused on Britain, where Shell, a multinational oil company, had one of its headquarters. He criticized the destructive impact of the oil industry on the Niger Delta region. As a result of mounting protest, Shell suspended operations in Ogoni land in 1993. The military junta led by General Sani Abacha responded to the MOSOP protests with force, committing numerous serious human rights violations including killings, torture and rape. While pollution from spills and gas flaring resulted in complete degradation of the Ogoni environment, turning their ancestral land into an ecological disaster, the nation turned a deaf ear to their plight.

In May 1994, four Ogoni chiefs known to be opponents of MOSOP were murdered. Without presenting any evidence, the junta blamed MOSOP and arrested scores of people, including Ken Saro-Wiwa.

Following the death of the four Ogoni chiefs, Saro-Wiwa was arrested on trumped-up charges by Abacha’s men in 1994 at a political rally. In a secret trial by special tribunal that was denounced by foreign human rights groups, Saro-Wiwa was pronounced guilty for alleged complicity in the murders. On 10th November, 1995, he was hanged and his remains dumped in an unmarked grave. His execution by hanging, along with those of eight fellow environmental activists, aroused international condemnation that led to the suspension of Nigeria from the Commonwealth a day after the executions. It’s on record that Nelson Mandela of blessed memory emphatically moved for the suspension of Nigeria from the Commonwealth. At the time of the executions, Shell was by far the most important company operating in Nigeria. It pumped almost one million barrels of crude oil a day, roughly half of Nigeria’s total daily oil production. Nigeria’s oil exports made up some 96 per cent of the country’s foreign earnings at the time. In 2011, the United Nations published a report putting the cost of cleaning up polluted Ogoni land at US$1 billion and said that reversing all the damage would take more than 30 years.

Till date, the entire Niger Delta still suffers from the debilitating impact of oil exploration. The entire ecosystem of oil-producing communities in the region has been destroyed while the poor owners of the land languish in abject poverty. The expatriates share their proceeds and petro-dollars with the federal authorities leaving nothing for the poor fishermen and farmers, and the unemployed youths in the region. Daily, oil from dilapidated pipelines and pumping stations seep into the soil and destroy it, and there is little or no respite for local residents. Today, Nigerian oil is still being stolen and sold on the black market. The perpetrators have elevated themselves to the coven of witches and untouchable gods to such an extent that the entire Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, one of the largest uniformed combat services in Africa – comprising over 230,000 men with 376 armoured tanks, 47 rocket projectors, over 147 military aircraft, 44 self-propelled artillery, over 2,000 armoured cars, in addition to a Naval Force controlling more than 70 warships – cannot apprehend the ‘almighty’ oil thieves!

Apart from his activism, Saro-Wiwa was a quintessential intellectual of tremendous fibre. His works as a prolific writer that he was explore the complexities and dynamics of human suffering and desire to be free from societal subjugation. Some of his notable books totalling over forty include Sozaboy, a novel written in pidgin; A Month and a Day, a diary written in detention; A Forest of Flowers; Lemona’s Tale; Genocide in Nigeria; Basi and Company; Africa Kills Her Sun; Mr. B; Prisoners of Jebs; Silence Would Be Treason, and Nigeria: The Brink of Disaster.

To commemorate Saro-Wiwa’s death, in the United Kingdom, activists gathered in London in recent past to listen to a speech he prepared but was prevented from reading it by the tribunal during the infamous military trial where he was sentenced to death. That speech captures his personality and character. He wrote, “I am a man of peace, of ideas, appalled by the denigrating poverty of my people who live on a richly endowed land, distressed by the political marginalization and economic strangulation, angered by the devastation of their land, their ultimate heritage, anxious to preserve their right to life and to a decent living, and determined to usher to this country as a whole a fair and just democratic system which protects everyone and every ethnic group and gives us all a valid claim to human civilization, I have devoted my intellectual and material resources, my very life, to a cause in which I have total belief and from which I cannot be blackmailed or intimidated…In my innocence of the false charges I face here, in my utter conviction, I call upon the Ogoni people, the peoples of the Niger Delta, and the oppressed ethnic minorities of Nigeria to stand up now and fight fearlessly and peacefully for their rights. History is on their side. God is on their side. For the Holy Quran says in Sura 42, verse 41: ‘All those that fight when oppressed incur no guilt, but Allah shall punish the oppressor.’”

As it stands today, one can only hope that someday this beautiful country called Nigeria will attain everything that Ken Saro-Wiwa lived and died for, so that at least the future generations of our people will benefit from the oil riches of the Niger Delta.

*Anthony-Spinks writes from Asaba, Delta State.