Ken Saro-Wiwa in one of his favorite Poems wrote:
Keep out of prison,
Don’t get arrested anymore
But while the land is ravaged
And our pure air poisoned
When streams choke with pollution
Silence would be treason
Punishable by a term in prison.
The prison scars are truly very scary. They live on my wrists. The psychological torture will live with you for a long time. Sadly, the pains are inflicted by your own country and in your innocence, you watch a police officer whose primary responsibility is to protect turn against you for no reason outside being vocal in a fight for human rights and survival of the people.
Ken Saro-Wiwa suffered from these scars and still lived with them until death. May Ken’s struggles for justice for the Ogoni people never seize until the Ogoni he left behind is happy.
It is unfortunate that the Nigerian government still fails to realize how easy it is to bring happiness to Ogoni. Government often think only of the use of brute force to calm public expression of civil unhappiness. The situation is worsened when a monster called Shell Petroleum is involved.
But I will help them in this instance. Our first expectation is the exoneration of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the eight others murdered with him in 1995. This has become a critical component of the Ogoni demands and will continue to stain our country until the innocence of the Ogoni 9 is acknowledged and asserted by the government.
The government has named a Polytechnic and a major street after Saro-Wiwa, they celebrate him in some ways but the government simply finds it hard to admit that the Ogoni 9 were murdered in their innocence and such magnitude of injustice cannot be forgotten in a hurry. The exoneration of the Ogoni 9 is overdue and should come now.
The persecution of civil rights activists have been the challenge and lot of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP. The Ogoni uprising questioning Shell’s corporate irresponsibility has led to massive killings and utter neglect. A dirty Shell Petroleum Development Company, Nigeria’s subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell PLC has turned the state against the Ogoni people.
Their wish is to stifle the sacrifices of Ken Saro-Wiwa and others for a better Ogoni and to possibly harass the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) to death. They would wish to have our dear Ken not remembered for anything.
Imagine a terribly confused KAGOTE contemplating its own wing of MOSOP. They have found their KAGOTE to be truly a private entity and think the only way to gain relevance is to find some attachment to MOSOP.
They have found their elitist ideology defeated by the mass- based philosophy of MOSOP, unable to stand against the tide, their only relevance is now perceived as achievable with some sort of endorsement by MOSOP. So, they scramble for the soul of MOSOP at all cost.
Does it make common sense that a supposed KAGOTE president is inaugurating an executive of MOSOP? Isn’t it a shame for those who reason and act so naively to claim they are Ogoni elites?
It’s frustratingly surprising even for the followership of these crop of Ogoni elites to allow their reasoning to be captured by a zombie mentality that even in their claims of elitism, a carry-go defeatist syndrome overwhelmingly drowns their courage and self esteem. They follow with an enslaved conscience unable to ask simple questions.
I should wonder why they wouldn’t simply admit that the KAGOTE they do today is fake and they all need to visit their villages to register with an affiliate of MOSOP, join the queue to learn how we do what we do.
The scramble for MOSOP has led them into lots of unwholesome behavior. But put together, they still cannot cope with the intellectual struggles of MOSOP. Their only consideration is the deployment of crude means.
Lessons from history of the Ogoni struggles should tell the new KAGOTE that MOSOP is an idea and indestructible. It cannot be seen nor can we separate it from the real Ogoni people who desire a better future for the nationality.
The current approach of the enemies of MOSOP is condemnable and detested. Unfortunately, our Police department does not care about basic investigations before they clamp down especially when a lot of water passes under the bridge.
The Police have become very vulnerable to exploitation especially when a serving Senator is desperate to be the next Rivers State Governor in 2023. If being a senator will send innocent Ogonis to unlawful detention, generate frivolous and spurious allegations to keep the most outspoken incarcerated, then, what will being an executive governor bring? May God save us from serving senators.
May God not give us serving senators as governors if all they can do with their position is promote an epileptic KAGOTE and device dubious means to kill the innocent, quench critical voices that refuse to be on their team of sycophants.
May the spirits of our land rise to defend the people against serving senators who see Fegalo Nsuke’s pen and battle of intellectualism to free the people from a slave culture as threatening their internal deception and unfair dominance.
And may the souls of all Ogoni martyrs stand against those whose intentions are to colonize our people internally, take away their peace and basic rights and subject them to undignified living.
I urge the Ogoni people to sustain our peaceful methods, rise up and demand respect for their basic rights. Arise and be counted among those whose efforts will bring the desired peace and justice for the oppressed people of Ogoni. We cannot afford to fail.
*Fegalo Nsuke is the President of Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP.
Email: nsuke.fegalo@gmail.com
END
Be the first to comment