In the summer of 1995, in a stifling courtroom in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, Ken Saro-Wiwa and nine other members of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) stood on trial for their lives. Led by SaroWiwa, MOSOP had for five years sought political autonomy for the Ogoni minority group while protesting ethnic discrimination, economic exploitation, and environmental destruction by the Nigerian government and Royal Dutch/Shell, the major oil producer in the region. Now, accused on flimsy evidence of incitement to murder four rival leaders, the MOSOP members faced a military tribunal hand-picked by the country's brutal dictator, General Sani Abacha. As the kangaroo court plodded forward that summer, MOSOP members, supported by major NGOs, fanned out to world capitals. Enlisting heads of state from Bill Clinton to Nelson Mandela to John Major, the Ogoni network pressured the Nigerian government but to no avail. On November 10, 1995, only days after the tribunal's long-predicted guilty verdict, Saro-Wiwa and eight others were marched to the gallows and their bodies dumped in unmarked graves.
Saro-Wiwa's killing was a severe blow to the Ogoni. But in a few short years, the man and his small movement had scored remarkable successes on the international stage against one of the world's most repressive governments and one of its largest corporations. Most basically, MOSOP lifted the Ogoni out of historical anonymity to widespread support. As late as 1992, the Ogoni, an impoverished group numbering perhaps 500,000 and living in a 400-square-mile corner of an expansive country with more than one hundred million people, were almost unknown abroad.' For decades both before and after Nigeria's independence in 1960, they opposed the central government over political, economic, and environmental issues. Dwarfed by disputes among Nigeria's three major ethnic groups and shrouded in international indifference to African affairs, Ogoni grievances festered outside the limelight. As late as 1990-92, major NGOs rejected the group's pleas for help in their quest for autonomy. Yet, by 1995, MOSOP had propelled the Ogoni to the front ranks of activism on two fronts, human rights and the environment. Among the many NGOs that assisted the Ogoni were Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and the Sierra Club. And despite Saro-Wiwa's execution, MOSOP and its international followers had important though limited effects on Nigerian politics and society - a major achievement given the group's minuscule size and the government's great power. In addition, the transnational Ogoni campaign spurred Shell to attend to its operations in the region and its human rights and environmental record worldwide.
The Ogoni rise to international prominence tells us much about the difficulties and dangers faced by local activists seeking foreign support. The pattern of NGO responses - initial rejections during 1990-92, adoption by a panoply of NGOs during 1993-95, and slow decline since 1995 - is particularly useful for uncovering insurgent and NGO strategies. The story is even more revealing when set in a broader context. The Ogoni are one of dozens of minorities living in the country's Niger River Delta that faced similar threats in both colonial and independent Nigeria. Organizations representing groups such as the Ijaw, Ikwerre, Itsekiri, Urhobo, and others sought external support during the early 1990s both before and after MOSOP's rise. As late as 1992, little seemed to distinguish the Ogoni from these other minorities. Yet, within two years, MOSOP eclipsed them all on the international scene, often overshadowing even the nationwide Nigerian democracy movement. Even today, few outside Nigeria know of the Niger Delta's far larger Ijaw ethnic group, Nigeria's fourth largest, with an estimated population of 13 million. Groups closer in size to the Ogoni are even less visible. If they sometimes gain recognition today, much of the credit goes to the Ogoni, whose actions illuminated the troubles plaguing the entire Niger Delta.
How did this obscure Nigerian minority stir the world's conscience? Why did it succeed when similar groups in the region did not? This Chapter highlights MOSOP's unusual ability to project its cause abroad, emphasizing various advantages that the Ogoni had over other Niger Delta minorities. But this alone was insufficient to attract outside aid. The Ogoni gained backing only after their struggle came to match the preferences and predilections of key NGO gatekeepers. This resulted in part grievances while highlighting important but previously secondary issues involving Shell's environmental record in the group's homeland. In addition, the conflict itself changed, as Nigeria's military dictators cracked down hard on a movement challenging critical ethnic and economic policies. Together, these shifts brought the Ogoni international media attention and NGO support but also overshadowed their core minority rights claims.
(1). Although widely cited, these Ogoni population figures, deriving from MOSOP itself, should be treated cautiously. Ken Saro-Wiwa, Genocide in Nigeria: The Ogoni Tragedy (Port Harcourt, Nigeria: Saros International, 1992); Ken Wiwa, In the Shadow of a Saint (Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2000), 68-69.
Rights: Copyright © 2006. Reprinted with permission of Cambridge University Press.
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