We’re still committed to Ogoni bill of rights – MOSOP

Tina Amanda

The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP-USA, says the people of Ogoni remain committed to the Ogoni Bill of Rights (OBR) submitted to the Federal Government on October 2, 1990, as it addresses all facets of their demands for environmental restoration, economic advancement, and self-determination amongst others.

In a joint statement signed by the President, MOSOP-USA, Dinebari Kpuinen, its General Secretary, Keesiliup Kponi, and its Public Relation Officer, Pastor Samuel Tombari-Nweemu, the group said it is the primary responsibility of the government to provide electricity,
clean water, good roads, hospitals, educational institutions, and security for Ogoni people if they are being considered as part of Nigeria.

In a ten-point agenda, the group called on the Federal Government of Nigeria to hasten the promise to connect the entire Ogoniland to the national grid as Ogoni is presently in total darkness notwithstanding being the host of the Afam Power Station and urge governments at all levels to immediately embark upon measures to make life inhabitable by providing clean pipe-borne water in the area.

Provide hospitals, educational institutions, skill acquisition centres and employment schemes for youths and women, good roads and security to the Ogoni people and rebuild the destroyed communities and order the return and rehabilitation of the inhabitants to their homes immediately following the military invasion of Ogoni land in 1994.

They further demand that the government completely rebuild the East-West Road to international standard; otherwise, all trucks and trailers will be permanently barred from using the road until it is fully reconstructed.

MOSOP-USA also demanded adequate compensation for the families of all the Ogoni people and other road users of the East-West Road who lost their lives as a result of the deplorable state of the road.

They, however, called on the Federal Government of Nigeria to immediately forgive and immortalize Ken Saro Wiwa and others who were unjustly executed without any fair judicial process on November 10, 1995, and declare November 10 every year as a public holiday in Nigeria in support of human rights and justice.