By Paul Williams
The Green Ogoni Initiative (GOI), a grassroots mobilization movement of Ogonis in the Diaspora has rejected the Federal Government’s plans to restart oil production in Ogoni against the will of the people.
The group, in a release signed by its International Coordinator, Baridakara Sunday, said the plan does not respect the rights of the Ogoni people to self determination nor does it include an environmental impact assessment of the Ogoni region.
This rejection comes as members of the Ogoni Dialogue Committee (ODC) who were billed to meet in Port Harcourt last weekend, had been ordered by the Federal Government of Nigeria to move the meeting to Abuja.
GOI alleged that the oil resumption plan does not offer any benefits for the Ogoni people and is riddled with financial inducements including a strongly rumoured 50 million Naira bribe offered to each member of the Ogoni Dialogue Committee (ODC).
The group claimed that the Ogoni Dialogue Committee has been battered by numerous credibility crises and compromises including the acceptance of a 0.5 percent community benefit offer.
GOI’s Sunday insisted that the Ogoni people cannot lose all the personalities it lost including Mr. Ken Saro-Wiwa, Chief Edward Kobani, Mr. A. T. Baddey, amongst others, suffere untold hardship, torture and deprivations for over three decades and settle for a 0.5 percent.
He stressed that the offer of 0.5 percent is grossly unacceptable and a violation of the rights of the Ogoni people to fair treatment.
The GOI coordinator added that “the desperate attempt to gather some select few into signing an MOU which the Ogoni people have not seen and ratified is an indication that the Nigerian Government is bent on causing crises in Ogoni and wants to subject the Ogoni people to a slavery condition that is worse that the experience of the past 33 years.”
He urged the Ogoni people to reject the contrivance of some 53 persons who gathered themselves and their friends into an Ogoni Dialogue Committee and wants to enrich themselves and families from the pains and sacrifices of the Ogoni people including the painful death of over 2,809 people.
“Ogonis worldwide are deeply pained at the betrayal of our collective conscience displayed by the so-called Ogoni Dialogue Committee and are deeply saddened to see this very painful episode replicated during the government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu whom we are aware was a victim of the Abacha persecution and exiled at the time Ken Saro-Wiwa and 8 others were executed,” he said.
GOI therefore called on the Ogoni people to prepare for a strong resistance against these invaders who have chosen to deepen the pains of the people, desecrate the land with more Ogoni blood money and dishonour the sacrifices paid by our fallen heroes.
Sunday said, “MOSOP-USA is further saddened by the fact that at this time in our history, just two days to the memorial of the 1995 hangings of 9 of our martyrs and fallen heroes, some conscienceless individuals are gathered in Abuja to sign an MOU calling on the Nigerian Government to resume oil production in Ogoni.
“We use the opportunity to alert the international community of the plot by the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led Nigerian government to further persecute the Ogoni people, suppress their collective will and militarise the area with attendant human rights abuses.
“We urge the world and people of good conscience to rise in support of the Ogoni people during this very frightening period when the machinery of the Nigerian State is about to be rolled out against the Ogoni people. The Ogoni people need the protection of humanity and now is the time,” he said.
