A coalition of civil society organisations (CSOs) has strongly criticised President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s recent presidential clemency list, which included the late environmental rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight of his Ogoni compatriots executed in 1995.
In a joint statement issued in Abuja, the CSOs described the move as “insensitive, misleading, and historically inaccurate,” arguing that the so-called pardon fails to acknowledge the grave miscarriage of justice that led to the execution of the Ogoni 9.
The statement — endorsed by the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, We the People, Environmental Rights Action, HEDA Resource Centre, Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa, Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, and other groups — expressed dismay at comments made by Bayo Onanuga, the President’s Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, in a State House release titled “Details of the Presidential Pardon and Clemency.”
In the statement, Onanuga had listed among the 175 pardoned individuals “illegal miners, white-collar convicts, remorseful drug offenders, foreigners, Major General Mamman Vatsa, Major Akubo, Professor Magaji Garba, capital offenders such as Maryam Sanda, Ken Saro-Wiwa, and the other Ogoni Eight.”
The CSOs faulted the categorisation, saying it “erroneously lumps environmental justice icons with convicted murderers and drug offenders, portraying them as common criminals.”
“The reference to Ken Saro-Wiwa and his comrades by the Presidency is offensive to their memory and that of thousands of Ogonis who suffered indignity and repression under the Abacha regime,” the groups said. “It does little to bring closure to their families or justice to the Ogoni people.”
They further criticised the statement’s reference to the four Ogoni leaders murdered by a mob in 1995 as “victims of the Ogoni 9,” describing the narrative as a distortion of historical facts.
The CSOs recalled that Saro-Wiwa and eight others — Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, and Barinem Kiobel — were executed on November 10, 1995, following a controversial military tribunal widely condemned as unjust and politically motivated.
They noted that forced testimonies, denial of appeal rights, and withdrawal of defence lawyers marked the trial, which the international community later described as a “judicial murder.”
“What the world has consistently demanded is not clemency, but exoneration — a full acknowledgment that the Ogoni 9 were victims of a travesty of justice orchestrated by the military government with the complicity of Shell,” the statement read.
The coalition said it was “deeply troubling” that the presidency recognised colonial injustices against nationalist, Sir Herbert Macaulay, while failing to make similar corrections for Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues.
“If President Tinubu can acknowledge that Macaulay was unjustly treated by colonialists, why is the same not said of the Ogoni 9 who were killed for standing against environmental exploitation?” the groups asked.
The organisations warned that the “half-hearted pardon” could be a prelude to renewed attempts to resume oil extraction in Ogoniland — a move they vowed to resist.
They called on President Tinubu to withdraw the so-called pardon and instead issue an official state apology, coupled with a gazetted pronouncement quashing the murder convictions of the nine activists.
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“Ken Saro-Wiwa, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel and their colleagues were not criminals. They were heroes who gave their lives for environmental and social justice,” the CSOs declared. “Their names deserve exoneration, not pardon.”
The statement was endorsed by 14 organisations, including the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, We the People, Environmental Rights Action, Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, Social Action, Ogoni People’s Assembly, Oilwatch Africa, and the Civil Rights Council.
