By Priya Raman

Twenty civil society organisations (CSOs) and rights groups have rejected plans to resume oil production in Ogoniland and open new oil wells across the Niger Delta, arguing that environmental cleanup, truth and community consent must come first.

The declaration, delivered to journalists in Port Harcourt, covers Ogoniland in Rivers State. It opposes reopening wells under present conditions and rejects new wells elsewhere in the Niger Delta. Celestine Akpobari, executive director of Miiderkor Environmental Development Initiative (MEDI), said the restart process was moving faster than truth, environmental cleanup and community consent.

Akpobari stated the groups’ position: "We, the undersigned civil society organisations, environmental justice groups, community-based organisations and allies, stand today in solidarity with the people of Ogoniland ..." and demanded "no resumption of oil production in Ogoniland under the present conditions, neither should any new oil well be opened in the Niger Delta."

What does the opposition require?

Akpobari said the groups oppose neither dialogue nor development. Their objection targets a process that has not addressed communities whose land, water and livelihoods have been affected by oil exploration. Their demand is environmental justice, meaning fair treatment of communities carrying the costs of oil activity.

The groups set three linked conditions for any restart:

• Establish the truth about past environmental harm and the 1995 executions.
• Resolve the pollution findings and complete the environmental cleanup.
• Obtain the consent of affected communities before restoring production.

That sequence matters because restoration would otherwise precede proof of environmental repair and community agreement.

What evidence supports the environmental case?

Yes. Akpobari cited the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in its 2011 Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland, which documented contaminated soil, polluted creeks and drinking water, and prolonged exposure to hydrocarbons (chemical compounds from petroleum). The groups say those findings and unresolved environmental challenges must be addressed before anyone decides to resume production.

The campaign also reaches back to the 1990 Ogoni Bill of Rights, which set out demands for communities to benefit from resources on their land and for accountability over environmental destruction. Sustained protests by the Ogoni people stopped oil production in Ogoniland in 1993.

Why does the 1995 execution still matter?

The country is marking the anniversary of the execution of environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni leaders on November 10, 1995. Akpobari rejected any reading of the execution as an isolated tragedy. He described it as the culmination of a two-year military campaign of repression against the Ogoni people.

The groups also cited the November 1999 military invasion of Odi in Bayelsa State, which followed the killing of police officers. The administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo ordered the operation. Independent estimates placed civilian deaths between several hundred and 2,500. The operation destroyed almost every building in Odi, apart from a bank, a church and a health centre.

They also alleged that the 1990 Umuechem killings included the murder of the community’s traditional ruler, his children and residents who joined peaceful protests, and that the victims’ bodies were thrown into a river. Akpobari presented these events as evidence of a recurring pattern of repression against Niger Delta communities seeking environmental justice and accountability from oil companies and government authorities.

What remains unresolved?

Akpobari said the injustices surrounding Saro-Wiwa’s execution persist. One concrete dispute concerns the Ken Saro-Wiwa Living Memorial, a sculpted bus created by artist Sokari Douglas Camp and donated to the Ogoni people.

Nigeria Customs Service has held the memorial in Lagos since September 2015, despite a National Assembly directive and a 2023 Federal High Court ruling ordering its release.

The groups also criticised the presidential pardon that Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni Eight received. They argued that clemency treated the executed activists as convicted criminals rather than victims of what they described as a stage-managed military tribunal (military court). Akpobari said this approach continued the injury done to their memory and to communities seeking justice.

Akpobari put the demand plainly: "What the Ogoni people and the wider justice movement have demanded is not clemency but full exoneration and a formal admission that the trial was a miscarriage of justice," he said. Exoneration means a formal declaration of innocence.

The declaration’s pressure point is process, not volume: resolve pollution, obtain consent and settle the justice claims before production resumes.