‘to alter the lives of a large number of people, of a whole community, of an entire country’ – Ken Saro-Wiwa
On the morning of 10th November 1995 in a Port Harcourt goal, Nigeria, the Ogoni 9 were murdered:
Ken Saro-Wiwa
Baribor Bera
Saturday Dobee
Nordu Eawo
Daniel Gbokoo
Barinem Kiobel
John Kpuinen
Paul Levula
Felix Nuate
Thirty-one years. A generation is commonly understood to last thirty years. So, a generation has passed since 10th November 1995.
The struggle that the Ogoni 9 fought in, and died for, has not gone away in these years. The pollution of the Niger Delta from oil & gas extraction, and the health and human rights impacts from it, continue unabated. However, this is time of remembering. As the Catalan musician Jorge Savall said.
‘The dead only die when the living cease to remember them’
So it is, with the Ogoni 9. And in the shadow of that remembering the lives of the Ogoni people, the lives of the peoples of Nigeria and the lives of a swathe of individuals internationally have been altered. The intensity of the impact on these lives has, of course, varied enormously. But all have been altered to some degree.
Ken Saro-Wiwa, in his last filmed interview, spoke of his work:
‘What is of interest to me is that my art should be able to alter the lives of a large number of people, of a whole community, of an entire country … it is serious, it is politics, it is economics, it is everything and art in that instance becomes so meaningful, both to the artist and to the consumers of that art.’
This blog tries to recall some of those whose lives have been altered by the art of Ken Saro-Wiwa. For in Platform, we have had a window into the lives of a few of those in Nigeria and internationally who have fought for justice and whose campaigns were reshaped by the catalyst of the Ogoni struggle. On this anniversary, we want to take time to remember individuals that we have been fortunate enough to work with.
Ken Saro-Wiwa, activist and writer, was the head of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP). A group dedicated to non-violent opposition to oil companies – and in particular Shell – which were despoiling the land and water of the nation of Ogoni in south eastern Nigeria. He was jailed for peaceful protest against Shell in 1994 and murdered by a military tribunal in 1995.
In 1994, guided by the stalwart Andy Rowell (now of Oil Change International), Steve Kretzmann and Cindy Baxter, Platform was introduced to the struggle of the Ogoni and Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was then in jail. MOSOP, short for the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, had been founded four years before through the declaration of the Ogoni Bill of Rights. When, in November 1995, Ken and his eight comrades were murdered by the military tribunal of President General Abacha, we were shattered. And we committed Platform to remember these lives and to support the Ogoni struggle for justice. We were soon guided by passionate Ogoni activists Oronto Douglas, Ike Okonta, Terry Ndee and their allies, including Irene Gerlach, Nick Ashton-Jones and Susi Arnott.
The nine were murdered for peacefully protesting against Shell and its desecration of the soil and water, the trees and air of Ogoni, a people and land in the south eastern corner of Nigeria. The Delta of the Niger had been a place of oil prospecting for over a century. In 1957, Shell finally found resources it considered were sizable enough to generate profit from, and the extraction of petroleum from the rocks beneath the forests, fields and creeks began. It has continued unceasingly for 68 years. For over two generations.
The first recorded protest against Shell’s operations in Ogoni came from Sam Badilo Bako, a school teacher, who wrote to the company in 1965. Sixty years ago:
‘Today, we need education, we need employment, we want to eat, we want to live … we do not want to lack money because Shell has removed land, which used to be our main source of revenue. In short, we do not want to live in a vicious circle in which we shall see Shell-BP as the authors of our misfortune and our oppressors … It is not an irony that those who live on top of wealth should be the poorest people in the nation?’
Ten years later, in 2005, Platform launched a commission for the Remember Saro Wiwa living memorial, backed by a group that included Anita & Gordon Roddick (activist entrepreneurs), John Sauven (head of Greenpeace UK), Tony Juniper (Friends of the Earth EWNI), Kadija Sesay (writer), Peter Kennard (artist) and David A Bailey (curator).
Wole Soyinka (Nigerian poet & playwright) announced the winner of the commission: British-Nigerian sculptor Sokari Douglas-Camp. She designed and built The Bus, a rendition of typical public transport in the Niger Delta, ladened with oil barrels. Each of which bore the name of one of the Ogoni murdered men. The body of the Bus was carved with the words of Ken:
‘I accuse the oil companies of practising genocide in Ogoni.’
The aim was to make something that was more than a static sculpture, to create a live event, an unfolding caravan of celebration and resistance. A remembrance and a call to action. In the public launch of The Bus at London’s City Hall, the Mayor Ken Livingston was accompanied by Ken Wiwa Jr (Son of Ken Saro Wiwa), Angela Davies (activist thinker), Linton Kwesi Johnson (poet), Helon Habila (poet and novelist) and William Boyd (novelist).
The Bus went on tour to Bristol, Nottingham, Liverpool and back to London, in each place it was the centrepiece of events led by musicians, including Nneka, and poets, such as Dorothea Smartt and Sai Murray. Alongside it, Constable published ‘The Next Gulf – London, Washington and oil conflict in Nigeria’ by Andy Rowell, James Marriott and Lorne Stockman, providing a survey of the past half century of the struggle in the Niger Delta against the oil corporations.
Eventually in 2015, with the energy of Ogoni activist Celestine Akpobari guiding us, Platform determined to have The Bus go to its rightful home at the Peace and Freedom Centre in Bori at the heart of Ogoni. The sculpture was shipped from the Port of Tilbury to the Port of Lagos where it was planned to be transported onwards to Bori. But at Lagos it was impounded.
Celestine struggled valiantly to have The Bus released from the Nigerian Customs Service. Motions were passed through the Nigerian Parliament demanding its freedom. Platform ran an international campaign to ‘Free the Bus’, with artworks by Alfredo Jaar and Jon Daniels. But to no avail. The Bus and the message of the Ogoni 9 was clearly too live, too politically sensitive, to be let out into the world.
Eight years later, in 2023, Celestine struggled again to have The Bus released. This time, the Nigerian Parliament agreed. But once again the Customs Service prevented the Bus from being set free.
In 2025, in the year of the Thirtieth Anniversary, Ogoni activist Lazarus Tamana, battled to have The Bus freed. Once again, its path was blocked. Once again, the authorities acted to detain it, so that this public sculpture should not be seen by the public. Even thirty years later, it is still seen as being too incendiary for it to be considered right to place it in front of the people of Ogoni, and the peoples of Nigeria. Why are the authorities still so scared of a bit of metal?
This is not about a sculpture. This is about the public recognition of the murder of the Ogoni 9, and the destruction of the land and water of Ogoni by Shell. This is about justice.
The situation in Ogoni has not been static since the murders in 1993. There has been a continuous unfolding struggle for justice. A struggle for justice that would not only be the cessation of oil drilling, but also the restoration of lands and waters polluted by oil. Despite repeated attempts, and pressure from several Nigerian governments, Shell has never been able to return to drill in Ogoni. Victories have been won through the tireless work of so many in Nigeria, including Celestine Akpobari at Ogoni Solidarity Forum, Nnimmo Bassey at Health of Mother Earth Foundation, Ken Henshaw at the Center for Social Studies and Development, Asume Osuka at Social Action and Lazarus Tamana at MOSOP.
In 2011, the UN Environment Programme published a full environmental impact assessment, reporting on the scale of the impact of oil extraction in Ogoni. In places, the pollution in the soil was found to be equivalent to the height of a London double-decker bus. Subsequent attempts to implement the report and conduct a ‘Clean Up’ have begun, but the scale of remediation has been pitiful compared with the scale of the devastation.
Communities in Ogoni, and elsewhere in the Niger Delta where oil and gas have been extracted for nearly 70 years, have acted to hold Shell to account for the destruction caused by oil spills. Cases have been brought to the court in London, some have been lost, others won such as at Goi, Oruma, Ogale, Bille, Ejama-Ebubu in Ogoni. Progress has been made. Not enough, but some. The lawyers at the firm Leigh Day – in particular Matthew Renshaw and Daniel Leader – have been relentless in their pursuit of justice.
In the past two years, there have been shifts in the position of the Nigerian Presidency. The current incumbent of the office, President Tinubu, has made moves that have led in, February 2025, to the establishment of a university department in Ogoni, the Federal University of Environment and Technology (FUET) focused on environmental restoration and sustainable development.
And in June 2025 President Tinubu formally pardoned Ken Saro Wiwa and the 8 other activist. However, as many have pointed out, most poignantly Saro Wiwa’s two daughters Noo and Zina, Ken should not be pardoned for a crime that he did commit and he should be exonerated.
Meanwhile, Shell has begun its withdrawal from ownership and extraction from the onshore oil & gas fields in the Niger Delta. Since 2022 it has been attempting to sell on its assets and thereby rid itself of its responsibilities to clean up decades of pollution. In this it is being resisted and held to account by communities in the Delta, especially in Ijaw, and groups including Caz Dennett of Justice 4 Nigeria, Mark Dummett of Amnesty International, Nick Hildyard at Cornerhouse and Antonio Tricarico of ReCommon.
A transition is happening in the Niger Delta. In a mirror of what is taking place in the UK North Sea, the oil majors are withdrawing and small corporations moving in to pick up the remains of production. These new companies have less capital, tighter margins, less of a need for a good public profile and are likely to conduct operations even less safely than Shell. Let alone finance the clean-up of historic pollution. A change is happening but this is not a transition as we would wish. It is not a just transition
And Shell has still not been held to account. Many of those who were implicated in the death of Saro Wiwa and his comrades many have passed away with no question marks against their names. While others are alive comfortable in new walks of life, such as former Shell CEO, Philip Watts who is now priest attending to an English parish in Berkshire.
Within Platform these have included those who made possible the many phases of the Remember Saro Wiwa campaign: Dan Gretton, Jane Trowell, Ben Amunwa, Sarah Shoraka, Lorne Stockman, Elisa Dassoler, Tim Sowula, Emma Hughes, Mika Minio-Palluelo, Greg Muttitt, Sai Murray, Ben Diss, Nick McCarthy, Diana Morant, Charlotte Leonard, Nick Robins, Rodney Mace, Rosey Hurst, Glen Fendley, Adelaide Bannerman, Suzanne Dhaliwal, Rose Ziaei and Lauriem Mompelat. Our work has been made possible by the invaluable support of so many including Dan Hind, Mark Brown, Bevis Gillett and Jemima Montague.
‘The Struggle of Humanity Against Power is the Struggle of Memory Against Forgetting’
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With thanks to Andy Rowell, Jane Trowell, Carys Broughton, Annie Brooker.