Government apologises to Ogonis

Nigeria’s government has apologised to the Ogoni ethnic minority of the southern oil region for “the sordid and sad events that took place...over the last few years” and urged it to embrace peace for a better future, the ‘Vanguard’ Lagos daily reported on Sunday.

The newspaper reported that the apology was delivered on behalf of the government by Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, chairman of the Human Rights Violations Investigations Commission, during a visit to Ogoniland on Saturday.

Author Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight fellow minority rights activists, who had campaigned against alleged environmental degradation by Shell oil company, were executed in 1995 on the orders of the late Nigerian military leader, General Sani Abacha. They were found guilty of the murder of four opponents after a trial widely seen as flawed.

Saro-Wiwa and the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), which he led, also accused successive governments of neglecting their area despite the huge oil wealth pumped from the Niger Delta. But MOSOP’s demand for greater control of the oil wealth and self-determination for the peoples of the Delta attracted repression from the country’s former military rulers.

The commission, which Oputa heads, is holding hearings in the oil industry capital of Port Harcourt. It was set up by President Olusegun Obasanjo to investigate human rights abuses in the last 30 years. Obasanjo’s election in May 1999 ended more than 15 years of military rule.