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27 years after the death of the Ogoni 13, the executive director of the Network for the Defence of Democracy and Good Governance, Amb Sobomabo Jackrich, has paid tribute to leader of the Ogoni 9, Ken Saro Wiwa, and other “heroes of the struggle for the social, economic and environmental emancipation of Ogoniland, Niger Delta and Nigeria.”
This was as he urged the Federal Government to take steps towards finding “some form of pardon and amnesty for the martyrs” of the Ogoni struggle, as well as assuaging the feelings and realities of marginalization that the ethnic nation is presently experiencing.
Addressing a press conference in Port Harcourt on Wednesday, Jackrich said he stands with the families of “the Ogoni 9, and the Ogoni 4, ( aka Ogoni 13) together with thousands of other Ogoni martyrs who paid the Supreme price for the social, economic, and environmental emancipation of Ogoniland, Niger Deita, Nigeria and Africa.”
He said the year 2022 “is historic for many reasons, as the 4th of December shall make it 30 years since the Ogoni people, under the leadership of Ken Saro Wiwa, took their destinies into their hands and courageously crossed the Rivers of Fear and gave quit notice to Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria and Joint Venture Partners.
“They were seeking to actualize the hope of the Ogoni people for a better life. As our hero, Ken Saro Wiwa said in one of his last interview, ‘The Struggle itself is about Hope. If I didn’t think that there was hope in the future, I will not be fighting. (Ogoni) Is a rich land. It 1s a well blessed land; If we can get the oppressors out of the way. If we can get those practicing double standards out of the way; If we can get the pollution to stop. I am sure that Ogoni will be a happy land.”
Jackrich, whose group, Network for Defence of Democracy and Good Governance “supports any ethnic group that is pro-democracy,” also quoted Prof Claude Ake’s belief that ‘Ogoni is the Conscience of this country.’ Prof Ake further held that the Ogonis, ‘have risen above our slave culture of silence. They have found the courage to be free. And they have evolved a political consciousness which denies power to rogues, bullies, fools and hypocrites for better or for worse, Ogoniland holds our hope. Battered and bleeding, they struggle on to realize our hopes and to restore our dignity. If they falter we die.’
Describing the Ogonis as one of the ethnic groups that have been marginalized in Rivers State, Sobomabo Jackrich, who is also the governorship candidate of the National Rescue Movement (NRM), said there is every need to give them a sense of belonging, to appease them and even give them some form of compensation.
Also describing himself as a freedom fighter, and one of the frontliners of the Niger Delta struggle, Jackrich stressed that as an Ijaw man, he is “in line with the struggle started by Isaac Adaka Boro,” which is also on a similar path as the Ogoni agitation.
“What happens to the Ogoni people also happens to the Ijaw people. Look at the oil spill in Bane (in Ogoni), it flows through the sea to Kalabari, to as far as Nembe.
“And I have come today with the same message of hope, building upon the foundation of our fathers and heroes. Yes, there must be hope in Rivers State.
“As we 1eflect upon the great life and legacy of this great messenger of hope, we must always remember his words that ‘You can kill the messenger, but you cannot kill the message. The message of hope is still alive today,” he said.
