Jan 08, 2008

Ogoni: MOSOP Marks Ogoni Day


Amid prayer and fasting, the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) reiterated its non-violent mission to achieve federal self-determination for Ogoni people.

Amid prayer and fasting, the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) reiterated its non-violent mission to achieve federal self-determination for the Ogoni people.

Below is an article published by Emma Amaize in Vanguard:

Ogoni resident[s] in the United States of America (USA) under the auspices of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) marked the Ogoni Day in America, yesterday [6 January 2008], with prayer and fasting, and a call on the Federal Government to create an Ogoni state.

In an online message, jointly signed by the president, Ikpobari Senewo, secretary, Catherine Nwileh-Ibeagha and publicity secretary/public relations officer, Baridon Gumnwee, which, was sent to Vanguard, the group said Ogoni was viable and rich enough to become a state under any name deemed appropriate by the authorities and would in no way, be a burden or liability to Nigeria.         

“MOSOP-USA is fully aware of the obvious fact that the oppression, marginalisation, corporate negligence, and enslavement of the Ogoni nationality cannot be resolved until the people of Ogoni take a seat at the table of the national government as a state”, they added.

The group appealed to the people and government of the United States, United Nations and the entire international community to not turn a blind eye to the suffering people of Ogoni in Nigeria, but rather step up pressure on the Nigerian government to address their plight.

While committing itself to effective constitutional reforms aimed at addressing the nation’s lopsided state creation, land rights, resource ownership/control, and environmental policies, it called for the implementation of the 1995 UN Fact-Finding Mission’s recommendations on Ogoniland, as read and adopted at the United Nations Headquarters on April 23, 1996.         

MOSOP-USA also demanded the urgent obliteration of all the spurious and trumped up charges for which Ken Saro Wiwa, Dr. Barinem Kiobel and seven other Ogoni leaders were judicially murdered in 1995; and a stop to further attempts to impose the Royal Dutch Shell or any oil prospecting firm on the Ogoni People.

Furthermore, it called on Ogonis of all walks of life, business, and politics, including all people of goodwill across the world, to remain committed to, and rally round, the Ogoni non-violent mass movement for environmental rights, social justice, and self-determination.

According to the organization, the Ogoni Day was in observance of the UN year for the indigenous peoples and the heinous and atrocious actions, which, the Nigerian nation-state and Shell Oil brought on the people when over 300,000 Ogonis participated in a mass non-violent protest against the devastation of their environment by the heartless multinational, oppressive, genocidal, and apartheid-like policies of both the Nigerian authorities and Royal Dutch Shell towards them.