The Ogoni Central Indigenous Authority (OCIA) has disassociated the Ogoni people from a plan by some groups operating in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, to use the forthcoming commemoration of the Ogoni Nine Hanging to wreak mayhem in the state.
This is just as the group has also alerted the police of the plot.
In the statement, Sunday, by the President of the organization, Dr. Goodluck Diigbo, and signed by his Special Assistant, Tambari Deekor, the group urged the Nigeria Police Force to be on the alert to protect lives and property.
Diigbo also alerted the Ogoni people to be prepared to act in self-defence, if threatened, or attacked.
“This is a solemn period for the Ogoni people. We do not, and never before used this period of remembrance of the hanging of the Ogoni Nine for protest. We use this time to remember, and honour our heroes past,” Diigbo stated.
Continuing, Diigbo said: “those groups making these threats do not speak for Ogoni. The Ogoni people do not know them. We have no agreement with them. We do not endorse their protest. We do not know what they are planning. And for recklessly threatening ‘blows and missiles’, whatever that means, cannot be ignored or treated as a joke. They must stay out of Ogoniland.”
He said they must be restrained to avoid bloodshed.
He, therefore, called on all well-meaning people of Ogoni to participate in the November 10 commemorations as usual at the Ken Saro-Wiwa Peace and Freedom Center, Bori.
This year is the 20th anniversary. Nine Ogoni activists were hanged on November 10, 1995 for demanding for Environmental Impact Assessment Study and self-government, otherwise called political autonomy, or self-determination.
