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Two factions of the Ogoni ethnic minority of southern Nigeria, whose feuding led to the 1995 execution of author Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other minority rights campaigners, have signed a peace pact, ‘The Guardian’ newspaper reported on Thursday.
The Lagos daily said the peace agreement was brokered by the Human Rights Violations Investigation Commission (HRVIC) currently sitting in the oil industry capital of Port Harcourt. Representatives of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), led by Saro-Wiwa, and the families of four of MOSOP’s opponents murdered by a mob in 1994, signed the peace deal.
The nine activists executed on the orders of late dictator Sani Abacha in 1995 were found guilty of instigating the murder of the four men after a trial before a special tribunal widely viewed as flawed.
HRVIC was set up by President Olusegun Obasanjo to investigate human rights abuses committed since January 1966 and to foster national reconciliation.
The Ogoni factions also agreed to fight together against environmental degradation caused by oil production on their land and to seek greater autonomy for their 500,000-strong minority in Nigeria’s federal system.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions