Full Text of Press Briefing Delivered by the Forum of Kingdom Coordinators and Chapter Leaders of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (FKCCL MOSOP) on April 3, 2025 in Bera, Gokana Kingdom, Ogoni
Ladies and gentlemen of the press, good afternoon,
With a deep sense of patriotism and responsibility, I address you today on behalf of the Forum of Kingdom Coordinators and Chapter leaders of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (FKCCL MOSOP), representing the core community mobilizers and grassroot coordinators of the Ogoni struggle.
Firstly, we represent the grassroots coordinators that led the struggles of the Ogoni people. We fought for human rights, dignity of the Ogoni people, social and environmental justice, and wish to reiterate our commitment to that cause.
This media briefing emanates from the decisions reached by the FKCCL MOSOP following the Ogoni General Congresses of June 8, 2024, and November 30, 2024. It further represents our backing for the peace building efforts of MOSOP, as demonstrated on the last Ogoni day of January 4, 2025.
In expression of our commitment to a peaceful resolution of the pOgoni problem, we endorsed a development proposal approved by the Steering Committee of MOSOP on September 27, 2020 and presented to the Federal Government of Nigeria by the president of MOSOP, Fegalo Nsuke.
The proposal called for the operationalization of an Ogoni Development Authority (ODA). It demands that 20 percent of profits made from natural resource extraction by any oil operator who is to operate in Ogoni be set aside for Ogoni development.
The Forum of Kingdom Coordinators and Chapter Leaders of MOSOP, FKCCL MOSOP, endorsed the ODA proposal as an acceptable pathway to a permanent resolution of the Ogoni problem and maintain that the said proposal captures the demands of the Ogoni people as expressed in the Ogoni Bill of Rights and have had an overwhelming support from the Ogoni people as expressed at the Ogoni National Congress of November 30, 2024.
We therefore want to register our very strong disapproval of ongoing talks, led by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), to resume oil production in Ogoni. Our position is that the entire exercise is dishonest, as it excluded the MOSOP leadership which is a critical voice to which the Ogoni people pay allegiance and is simply at attempt by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) to cajole our people and create the wrong impression that the Ogoni people have never made their demands known nor do they really know what they want.
The FKCCL MOSOP completely rejects the attempt by ONSA to misrepresent our people and our demands in desperation to validate a parochial and dishonest report that they have already written. It should be very clear that as a people, our struggle led by MOSOP has been sustained for over three decades, and our demands for a just and fair treatment have been very clear. ONSA does not need to redefine our needs nor tell us what we want.
Furthermore, we demand an investigation into the controversial murder of four prominent Ogoni leaders on May 21, 1994, namely Chief Edward Kobani, Chief Samuel Orage, Mr. Albert Badey and Chief Theophilus Orage, to determine the immediate and remote causes of their deaths. We also insist on the decriminalization of nine Ogonis who were unjustly executed by the Nigerian Government under General Sanni Abacha on November 10, 1995 – as part of the fundamental issues to be resolved, going forward.
We strongly reject all forms of abuses, use of state force against the Ogoni people, forceful resumption of oil extraction in Ogoni, divide and conquer tactics and manipulations as currently conducted by the Office of the National Security Adviser in desperate attempts to trample upon the demands for basic rights to fair treatment and justice for the Ogoni people.
FKCCL MOSOP is further pained that while we are yet to see an appreciable progress in the cleanup of Ogoni which commenced some nine years ago, the government is again attempting to harass the Ogoni people into submitting to a forceful resumption of oil production in the land while failing to clean over six decades of Shell’s reckless pollution of the same Ogoni lands.
We urge Mr. President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to halt all current moves by the Office of the National Security Adviser to ignite fresh crises in Ogoni and call on President Tinubu to halt attempts to forcefully commense oil extraction in Ogoni without addressing the critical demands of the Ogoni people as represented in the aforementioned Ogoni congresses as that will certainly trigger a strong civil resistance which could lead to unnecessary and avoidable social unrests.
We urge fairness, mutuality and justice in a collective approach in search for a solution to the Ogoni problem and note that, in good conscience, considering the huge costs of the Ogoni struggle, the loss of over 4,000 Ogoni people to state backed persecution by the Nigerian Government, it is unfair and unjust for the Nigerian authorities to contemplate a resumption of oil production in Ogoni in the midst of current dissent without considering the safety and demands of the Ogoni people for fairness.
We therefore urge the government to explore available windows for a genuine and peaceful engagement with MOSOP and pledge to cooperate with such outcomes as much as it is transparent, honest and genuinely driven to address the developmental concerns of the Ogoni people.
Signed:
Celestine Viula,
Chairman of the MOSOP Kingdom Coordinators’ Forum and Coordinator of MOSOP, Gokana Kingdom.
April 3, 2025
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