It happened in the summer of 1973 and on the playgrounds of St. Andrew’s Anglican Church that forms one of the T. Junctions on Mbonu Street, Port Harcourt.
It happened in the summer of 1973 and on the playgrounds of St. Andrew’s Anglican Church that forms one of the T. Junctions on Mbonu Street, Port Harcourt.
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"Let the games begin," shouted a zealous fan from the sideline. It was Ogoni versus Port Harcourt. Already the song was in the air and roaring, “every Sunday, Ogoni de sell tombo.” In my opinion, it was an intimidation tactics but that was far from it. The song was designed to insult our performance and cripple our efforts in the game.
It was a soccer tournament between the Kalabaris, Ijaws and the Okrikas against the Ogonis. After the civil war, only three Ogoni families lived on Mbonu Street, Chief S.B. Nwikpo, Engineer Naeyor (my brother) and Ms. Constance Saro-Nwiyor (from KwaraTown and the first Principal of Marian High School, Bane). The children of Nwikpo were far away in various high schools while Ms. Saro-Nwiyor had no child at the time that could participate in such brutal African chief sport.
The Ogoni side was occupied by just three of us, my brother (nicknamed “Shackydoh”), one of the male servants of Saro-Nwiyor and my humble self. My brother was not the type that enjoys picking fights, particularly in deep waters. The Port Harcourt team consisted of about ten teenagers from the aforementioned tribes in Rivers State. Ogoni did not only win the match but ensured that our opponents go home with severe knee pains that prevented them from any near future contests. Our success was due largely to the anger from that irritable and terrible song, “every Sunday, Ogoni de sell tombo.”
My experience on the soccer field was just part of the numerous insults I received on Mbonu Street for being an Ogoni. If those of us who were raised in such an affluent neighborhood at the time suffered such untold emotional pain, what would have been the case of other Ogonis who were in Diobu and the water-fronts in Port Harcourt? It was difficult to even greet someone in any of the Ogoni languages in the transportation buses on Port Harcourt streets without being shouted down or looked upon with scorn. I grew up with this stigma and walked around hoping no one provoked me daily.
But not every aspect of the “Ogoni peor-peor” was bad. This derogatory bring-down mentality goaded every Ogoni person living anywhere outside the Ogoni domain to seek excellence in their endeavors. We were hard working, not involved in stealing or prostitutions. We kept our prides as a people.
Ken Saro-Wiwa, an Ogoni political and environmental advocate, wrote in his pamphlet, “The Ogoni Nationality Today and Tomorrow”: “But we do ask that the disgrace of the past should be our armour against the future.” As it is popularly said in Nigeria, “what doesn’t kill you will make you strong”. I guess we are stronger now. LOL.
Kenule Saro-Wiwa was not spared this stigma and that propelled the publication of his letter to the Ogoni youths. As the Commissioner for Education he ensured that more than fifty percent of the educational scholarships were given to his people, although some of the beneficiaries turned against him later (de sa baa kua`). After the civil war, he housed very many Ogonis and introduced them into executive government employments and politics at the highest level to elevate their low-state. He did so with the intent that someday they would subsequently bring development home to Ogoniland.
During the civil war he took sides with Nigeria and escorted the troops from Bonny through Bane, Kono and Opuoko waterfronts to crush the Biafran troops. This singular gallant effort led to the end of the civil war as Biafra was sandwiched between the West and the South. Igbos never forgave him for this act, but they forgot the maltreatment they gave him at Enugu at the onset of the war.
At the end of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s era in public life he retreated to business and writing while keeping sleepless nights on the future of Ogoni. The word “squander-mania” shall remain in my vocabulary as long as I live. It was a singular word-answer by Ken Saro-Wiwa to Engineer Naeyor’s (in our Deewih-Bane home, 1988) doggedness that he should have kept his MANSER appointment. He told Naeyor that Nigeria was ruled by pig-headed men and women who were lavishing the nation’s wealth on irrelevancies. Nigeria gave him an office and all the benefits that accrued to him as a Director but refused to implement the least of his suggestions on the way forward for the country. He left and kept his honors in October 1988.
By 1990 the dye was cast as Kenule abandoned his family, business and personal life to complete his works for the Ogonis. I was in Bane Town for Christmas and New Year celebrations when the “Town-Crier,” at about 9:00 PM on December 24, 1992 arrived Deewih village to notified us that Kenule would like to address us in the morning at 6:00 AM prompt. He directed us to be at the town’s square unfailingly. The entire community gathered and was wondering if Kenule actually slept in Bane that night. At about 6:45 AM we saw the body and soul of the Gbene-dorbi, Chief Jim Beeson Wiwa, with his infallible strides marched into the town square with his body guards and entourage. He spoke in few words, saying: “Kenule did not consider being here today because you are already enlightened and the subject matter you understand better. Kenule said he has a lot of work to do in the Ogoni heartland and he needs your inestimable support.” On January 4, 1993 Kenule expects all and sundry from all the villages of Bane to walk their way to Baen Town, the traditional Headquarters of Ken-Khana Kingdom to celebrate the beginning of the freedom of the Ogoni Race from Nigeria’s “oppressive regime.” And we went and danced the guns to silence and removed Shell Oil Company from Ogoni, pending the decommissioning of their business. It was a day that shall live forever, a day that Kenule wished he had died after seeing a people that were docile and rendered to scorn rise to unshackle themselves from internal slavery.
Then came May 21, 1994: a day that will remain cursed on the Ogoni calendar for its cruelty to the innocents. At the onset of the MOSOP campaign, the Ogoni youths (NYCOP) on April 29, 1993 successfully organized a non-violent march on Port Harcourt Secretariat holding high our Bibles as symbol of peace. May 21, 1994 marked the beginning of “Operation Waste and “Sanitizing Ogoniland” by Nigeria and Shell Oil Company. The killer instruments of Nigeria did not only whisk Ken Saro-Wiwa from Ogoniland that day but they came back to kill Albert T. Badey, Edward Kobani, Samuel Orage and Theophilus Orage. Having concluded their evil deeds, Shell and Nigeria hired the services of some low-life Ogoni youths (David Keenom, Celestine Mmeabe, Kenwin Badara and Saturday Mimim,) to testify against Ken Saro-Wiwa. Based on trumped-up charges, on November 10, 1995 Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni finest were hung to death. These were “judicial murders.”
Earlier, on May 6, 1994 the Congressional Human Rights Caucus of the US House of Representatives had written to General Sani Abacha expressing serious concerns about the safety of Ogoni people in Nigeria considering large scale human rights abuses there. In the “Weekly Sunray” of Sunday, July 17, 1994, Professor Claude Ake, alluding to the plights of Ogoni people declared Ogonis “Endangered Species.” TELL Magazine special edition of November 1995, in response to the hanging of Ken captioned that edition “Abacha Takes On The World.”
Now, when will the Ogonis take on Nigeria? Where are the Ogonis in the pursuit of justice for Ogonis? When shall we seek civil redress for the killings of Ogoni people, particularly Ken Saro-Wiwa?
This un-political and lack of entrepreneurial spirit of Ogoni people was rightly observed by Ken Saro-Wiwa in his book: “ON A DARKLING PLAIN” page 45.
“When I got to Bori that day, things were not the same again. In the market (where Papa was in charge), I tried to find out from him how many stalls belonged to Ogoni
people. At the police station where we went to play table tennis every afternoon, I asked how many Policeman were from Ogoni[……...]Perhaps Ogoni people were actually stupid? If they were not at Umuahia, Aba and Port Harcourt, could they not also be in Bori?” (Saro-Wiwa, 1989)
While some of us “the covetous” have chosen to remain slaves in government services in the name of appointments and contracts for personal gains, the rest of us wait for the restoration of Ken Saro-Wiwa’s name to its dignified state. Time shall definitely exonerate the Ogonis and Ken Saro-Wiwa from the shame of Nigeria and Shell. I seriously prize myself on honesty and decency in character but others “the greedy,” in overt exposure of their weakness are clamoring around Politicians in Nigeria in order to pick crumbs from their tables. What a shame. The character of a man is defined by the choices he makes. Ken Saro-Wiwa was a man of honor; a man who sort good name instead of fame and money. A man who knew that hard work creates success.
Nigeria and Shell, may your days remain cursed forever for taking innocent lives, particularly that of Ken Saro-Wiwa, in such a callous manner.
“There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair.” “My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure.” (Martin Luther King Jr., April 16th, 1963)
Ogoni people wake up and let the struggle continue.
Bless be the memory of Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa (1941-1995).
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