Thirty-one years after the killing of four prominent Ogoni leaders, which led to the arrest of the late Ken Saro-Wiwa, a youth leader, Mr. Matthew Dighi has warned against wiping up unnecessary sentiments about the killings, in order not to polarize the people.
Speaking with our correspondent, Mr. Dighi, who is the Deputy National Youth leader of PANDEF, described as baseless and a calculated attempt to create division among the Ogonis, insinuations that the National Youth Council of Ogoni People, NYCOP, was responsible for the killings of the four men.
While noting that thirty-one years is long enough for reconciliation, Mr. Dighi said the death of the Ogoni four and the arrest of Late Ken Saro-Wiwa were of great importance to the Ogoni struggle.
He said “after 31 years today we are looking forward to coming together to unite ourselves and take away the sentiment because the death came for destruction and freedom, the death of the Ogoni men was as a result of destruction, while the kidnapping of ken was as a result of freedom so put all together we need to come together as one and forget about the past”.
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While noting that the killing of the four Ogoni chiefs was sad and painful, Mr. Dighi, however, appealed to families of the late chiefs to desist from making comments that could be detrimental to efforts geared toward total reconciliation of various factions in Ogoni.
“As indigenous president I will appeal to the family of the four chiefs not to repeat history, what happened in 1994 is a history that we don’t want to repeat it self in Ogoni, wwe should see our self as one blood one love and one unity so what those people died for directly or indirectly would not go in vain” he stated.
The Youth leader urged the people to remain firm in defending the ideals that the late Ogoni leaders stood for.
