Social activist and head of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Ken Saro-Wiwa, alongside eight of his fellow leaders—Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel, and John Kpuine—were put on trial under the false pretext that the group had incited the murder of four Ogoni chiefs.
This movement consisted of over seven hundred thousand Ogoni people, all campaigning for social, economic, and environmental justice through nonviolent resistance and protest.
These oil spills made the land uninhabitable in some areas, and unable to be farmed, a common livelihood of the Ogoni people.
Without presenting any evidence, the government blamed MOSOP and arrested..people, including Ken Saro-Wiwa and Barinem Kiobel.
According to Lazarus Baribiae Saale of the Niger Delta University, “wake-keep and all-important rites given to heroes in the Ogoni tradition were not allowed by the Military Government.
Ogoni land during this period was militarized and those who wore black clothes were arrested for mourning these activists.”[6] The executions provoked international condemnation and led to the increasing treatment of Nigeria as a pariah state until General Abacha's mysterious death in 1998.
[3] Ken Saro-Wiwa was an influential teacher, government leader, writer, actor, and most famously an activist for the Ogoni people.
He resigned from his governmental position when he felt that dictator Ibrahim Babangida was disingenuous about his work to restore Nigeria to a democracy.
Saro-Wiwa served as one of the early members of the MOSOP, vice chairman of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO).
Ken Saro-Wiwa promoted peaceful protests, and he worked to find solutions through the MOSOP and UNPO in nonviolent ways.
During MOSOP’s 1993 protest, an Ogoni leader explained, “We have woken up to find our lands devastated by agents of death called oil companies.
Our atmosphere has been totally polluted, our lands degraded, our waters contaminated, our trees poisoned, so much so that our flora and fauna have virtually disappeared”.
In August of 1990 the Chiefs and Ogoni people met to sign the bill of rights, claiming their independence from the British, while also recognizing loyalty to Nigeria.
It is that of a distinct ethnic minority in Nigeria who feel so suffocated by existing political, economic and social conditions in Nigeria that they have no choice but to cry out to the international community for salvation.” He explained further that 100 billion dollars of oil has been exported from Ogoniland, but all the Ogoni people saw was “no pipe-borne water, no electricity, very few roads, ill-equipped schools and hospitals and no industry whatsoever.” Environmental degradation was also an essential topic in the bill, including how streams and rivers are polluted, gas flares burn constantly, and various issues with acid rain and oil spills.
The bill includes a list of 20 rights presented to the government and Nigerian people, as well as an addendum and a call to action for the international community.
Amnesty International issued a statement that Saro-Wiwa's arrest was "part of the continuing suppression by the Nigerian authorities of the Ogoni people's campaign against the oil companies".
The Attorney General stated that the tribunal would commence on January 16, enforcing a trial date before there was evidence to show that these men were guilty in any form.
Eventually Ken Saro-Wiwa’s lawyers pulled out of the Tribunal due to the false allegations, bribery of key prosecuting witnesses, and its flawed nature.