This was done at Saro-Wiwa’s 24, Aggrey Street House in Port Harcourt, Rivers State on Wednesday, November 9, 2022, the eve of the commemoration.
Omoyele Sowore, the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, has declared open the 27th memorial ceremony for the late Ken Saro-Wiwa, and eight other environmental rights activists known as Ogoni 9.
This was done at Saro-Wiwa’s 24, Aggrey Street House in Port Harcourt, Rivers State on Wednesday, November 9, 2022, the eve of the commemoration.
The organisers set up a street podium to celebrate the late activist hanged along with eight other Ogoni activists on November 10, 1995, in Port Harcourt.
Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni residents had opposed the Royal Dutch Shell oil company's business practices. They were, however, hanged on trumped-up accusations by the regime of the late dictator, General Sani Abacha in 1995.
A big throng of young people, including musicians, poets, and activists, converged on the venue.
The celebration, scheduled to stretch all night, should begin with a visit to the Port Harcourt cemetery at midnight.
Sowore stated during the ceremony that the late activist introduced him to activism against multinational corporations. He disclosed that Saro-Wiwa was the first to discuss climate change while also pushing against pollution in the Niger Delta.
He also noted that Saro-Wiwa was the first to identify suspected widespread oil theft by foreign oil firms reportedly conspiring with Nigerian oil authorities, including Royal Dutch Shell.
The AAC presidential candidate vowed to clean up the populated sites of Ogoni and the entire Niger Delta region immediately after he gets into office, if he is elected as President in 2023.
He said, “I met Saro-Wiwa when I was 21 years old. He was the one who introduced me to the struggle against multinationals.
“The issue of climate change which is happening now in Egypt, it was Saro-Wiwa that first started talking about it in Africa, and by extension in the world.
“Saro-Wiwa never died, but remains with us. You cannot kill a man who has not been destined to die.”
The Ogoni Nine were a group of nine activists from the Ogoni region of Nigeria who opposed the operating practices of the Royal Dutch Shell oil corporation. They fought the government and oil companies over environmental degradation in their region.
Their members comprised outspoken author and playwright Ken Saro-Wiwa, Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel, and John Kpuine, who were executed by hanging in November 1995 by the military dictatorship of Abacha.
They were buried in Port Harcourt Cemetery.
Their executions provoked international condemnation and led to the increasing treatment of Nigeria as a pariah state until General Abacha's death in 1998.
Saro-Wiwa had previously been a critic of the Royal Dutch Shell oil corporation and had been imprisoned for a year prior to the executions in November 1995.
