This is an article written by Ken
Saro-Wiwa in 1987.
I am a Khana. The Khana along
with their cousins, the Gokana, Tai and Eleme have, since 1947, been grouped as
Ogonis, in the Ogoni Division. Today, the Khana and Gokana are in the Bori
Local Government Area, the Tai and Eleme are part of something called Otelga, a
hybrid Local Government consisting of the Okrika Ijaws, the Ndoki Igbos and the
Tai and Eleme. We belong to Rivers State.
The Ogoni number about 500,000,
which makes me an extreme minority in a Nigeria of one hundred million people.
The first secondary school in Ogoni country was established one hundred years
after the first secondary school in Yorubaland, the CMS Grammar School in Lagos
(1858). These two facts alone, in the first instance, establish my pitiable
plight.
I am unfortunate to be a
Nigerian. I would rather not be, but I am doing my level best to be one, and a
good one at that. Being a Nigerian means that my brother Nigerian of the Bura
ethnic group in Borno State has been told that I am a “Southerner,” equal to
the Yoruba or Igbos who are numerous, well-educated and are after the jobs
which the “northerner” ought to have. I wander, therefore, through the Federal
Civil Service and am lost in the competition between “northern” and “Southern”
Nigerians, between the Igbo and the Yoruba, between the various clans and
religions of the various peoples of Nigeria, between personal ambition and
greed. I am lost. I cannot truly answer the name Nigerian. […]
I was a graduate student when the
cataclysmic events of 1966 happened. Apart from my revulsion at the needless
murders of the innocent, nothing upset me more than Ojukwu’s dishonest
formulations and his attempt to kidnap the Ogoni, among others, into his Igbo
empire called “biafra.” I knew that he pinned his hopes of the economic
viability of “biafra” on the oil of the Ogoni and the Ijaw. I rebelled. I
became Secretary of a small committee which met nights in Port Harcourt and
issued a communique calling on Gowon to create a Rivers State by decree.
When, by sheer quirk of fortune,
this happened in 1967, I abandoned family and caution, crossed the fighting
lines and found myself in Lagos. There I became a member of something called
the Interim Advisory Council of Rivers State and, subsequently, Administrator
for Bonny. I returned to the war front and struck up friendships with gentlemen
like Sani Bello who comes from Kontagora, Akinrinade from Ife, Obasanjo from
Abeokuta, Yakumu Danjuma from Takum, Dan Ato, now deceased, from Bida. I had
reason to hope that my nightmare as an Ogoni in Nigeria was about to end.
With the war ended, and as a
Commissioner in Rivers State, I soon found that the Rivers State for which I
had fought did not end my nightmare. In the first place, oil money from Ogoni
country (as well as Ijaw country) was being carted away to Lagos, leaving the
Ogoni illiterate and backward. This is anti-federalism. Worse still, the Ijaws
were taking their frustrations out on the non-Ijaws of the State. For the Ijaws
along number more than the eight other ethnic groups in Rivers State put
together. Though historically disunited, the Ijaws find unity when it comes to
lording if over the non-Ijaws. The Ijaws will want to perpetuate this. Today,
there is not even a Commission from my Local Government Area in the Rivers
State Cabinet such as it is. My dilemma as an Ogoni is not about to end.
Lost in this dreadful nightmare,
I went in 1971 to see Chief Awolowo at the Federal Ministry of Finance. There
was nothing I told the sage that he was not aware of. He showed me his writings
on the issue and bade me seek the mid-Southern State he had proposed in 1966.
Thus was the quest for a Port Harcourt State begun. In 1974. When we started,
there was no shortage of opponents. To the Ijaws, I became a traitor. […] The
creation of this State would alleviate my nightmare and show Nigeria how much
it has robbed and neglected the Ijaws of the oil-bearing Delta.
So, what do I really want? I want
a place where my children can regain the independence which was the Ogoni
patrimony before the advent of colonial rule and before Nigeria’s independence
consigned them to slavery at the hands of their neighbours. I want the option
of CHOICE. And I am not begging for it. I DEMAND it. And I also want that
option for Hauwa Madugu, the 21-year-old Youth Corper in my office. She is a
Jenju from Gongola State. So that we can both be better citizens of Nigeria and
end our collective nightmare.
Note: History has taught us
something, as he thought he have betrayed Ojukwuto Nigeria government, the same
Nigeria government later killed him by hanging and his corpse was never
returned to his people.
Ken Saro-Wiwa was a Nigerian
writer, television producer, and environmental activist renowned for his
leadership in the non-violent struggle of the Ogoni people against
environmental degradation caused by oil exploitation in the Niger Delta. As
president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), he
campaigned vigorously against the practices of multinational oil companies,
particularly Shell, and the complicity of the Nigerian government. In 1995, he
was murdered by Nigeria’s military regime led by General Sani Abacha, sparking
international outrage and condemnation.
The opinions expressed in this
article are solely those of the author.
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