The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) says the Ogoni people want to control their own affairs within the Nigerian political space.
Speaking in Kono Boue, Khana local government area of Rivers State, President of MOSOP, Fegalo Nsuke, said the Nigerian political configuration strangulates and discriminates against the Ogoni leaving them in conditions that are gradually sending the Ogoni people to death. He said the Ogoni people were determined to remedy the situation by controlling their own affairs within Nigeria.
Nsuke said the demands for political control of Ogoni affairs have been the focus of the Ogoni Bill of Rights which was presented to the government and people of Nigeria by MOSOP in 1990. The MOSOP President described what Nigeria has done to the Ogoni people as genocidal. He noted that the Ogoni people exist nowhere else on planet earth except in Nigeria and therefore deserved special protection. Describing the Ogoni people as endangered species, the MOSOP president said the demand for the political rights to self determination was justifiable, logical and in agreement with the vision of the founding fathers of our country.
He said the Ogoni people, being a distinct ethnic nationality, now endangered by deep rooted injustice, a strangulating economic neglect and political discrimination, deserve to be protected rather than being allowed to die. He urged men of conscience to rise and save Ogoni from Nigeria’s discrimination.
Nsuke said the Ogoni people have suffered tremendously in Nigeria. Describing the conditions of the Ogoni people as very critical, Nsuke said the environment has been left devastated, that political rights to self determination are not respected, the people are being murdered for speaking against injustice, discriminatory laws are being used to strangulate the desire for freedom, Ogoni natural resources are carted away through unfair laws to build the rest of Nigeria and nothing comes back to the Ogoni people.
The MOSOP leader said consequent upon these terrible conditions in which the Ogoni people live, the Ogoni have no choice than to legally seek the enforcement of their rights to control their own affairs within the Nigerian State.
Nsuke therefore called on the Nigerian Senate to treat, as urgent, the demands of the Ogoni people for the creation of a Bori State to cater for their needs noting that other nationalities in Nigeria already enjoyed the rights to self determination. He said the demand for the creation of a Bori State for the Ogoni people had long been adopted by Ogoni congresses and was reinforced at the congress of March 2019.
He noted that the demands for the creation of a Bori State for the Ogoni people was economically justifiable as Ogoni has the capacity to generate more revenue than 20 Nigerian states put together. According to the MOSOP President, “it is unfair to take away Ogoni resources to build the rest of Nigeria while the Ogoni people are left to die. We therefore demand our political rights to function in Nigeria as Ogoni people.”
He said it was absolutely wrong, unacceptable and unjust for the Ogoni people who live in a richly endowed land to be exploited by their own government in connivance with very brutish capitalists like Shell and left to die, their resources taken away while the people are left with the painful consequences of natural resource exploitation including oil spill pollution which has lasted for over 50 years.
The MOSOP President regretted that Nigeria has actually not cared so much for the lives of the Ogoni people and allowed environmental pollution from Shell to kill over 300,000 Ogonis in about 60 years.
Nsuke further used the occasion to caution the Nigerian Government against contemplating forceful resumption of oil production in Ogoni against the consent of the people.
He said forceful oil resumption will kill the Ogoni people because they are sure to protest it and the response of the oil industry will always be to draft soldiers who only kill the people.
Nsuke further said killing the Ogoni people can ignite a Niger Delta crisis because the rest of the Niger Delta will be sympathetic to the Ogoni. He urged the government to consider the conditions laid down by MOSOP through the implementation of the Ogoni Development Authority as a way to discuss a solution that will lead to peace and progress in the region.
Nsuke further urged the Ogoni people to sustain the non-violent approach to their agitation assuring of the commitment of MOSOP to pursue the campaigns for Ogoni rights until victory is won.
