Comrade Bobby Peek, foremost South African Environmentalist making a presentation at Saro Wiwa seminar
More...
Proff. Kevin Winter of the University of Cape Town, focus on the scrreening of The Drilling Field a documentary that catelogues Shell's activities in Ogoniland.
More...
Ronald Wesso, Democracy Programme Coordinator, Bobby Peek, Director of groundowrk, a South African NGO, Dr. Austine Tam-George, UCT post doctoral fellow and Dennis Brutus of the CCS Durban, South Africa
More...
South African Women Composed a song in honor of Ken Saro Wiwa.
More...
Dennis Brutus, says he is still bitter with Shell for killing Ken Saro Wiwa.
More...
Patrick Naagbanton, prominent rights activist and AkpoBari Celestine Nigerian Administrator being led by an 8yr old kid, to lay wreath at Shell's grave in Yorla.
More...
Procession from main event venue to yorla for burial and laying of wreath on Shell's grave.
More...
Procession at the 2008 Ogoni Day
More...
Comrade Dorathy at protest in Cape Town
More...
Barry Wugale at a rally Int.Convention Centre Cape Town.
More...
A cross section of the delegates at the Memorial Seminar in honor of Saro Wiwa
More...
Activists singing solidarity song in honor of Ken Saro-Wiwa after the burial and wreath laying ceremony at Shell's graveside in Yorla-Ogoni, Nigeria.
More...
A Spokeperson for the Women at the 10th November 2007
More...
A cross section of Ogonis at Ogoni day
More...
|
The Ogoni struggle against Empire nation-States |
|
|
|
|
The Ogoni Bill of Rights (OBR) is a document presented to the Nigerian State in August 1990; it captures the demands of the Ogoni tribe as an ethnic nationality that pre-dates the formation of Nigeria by British colonial authority. The OBR remains the hallmark of the Ogoni struggle and is still, the point-of-departure between the Ogoni struggle and successive Nigerian administrations. The document clearly states that the Nigerian ruling class and their cronies have deliberately latched onto the type of nation-State that is built on the basis of the strength of a tripod empire over the perceived weaker groups and terra cottas. Most importantly, the OBR argues that the Nigerian system facilitate the retrogression and decline of the Niger Delta which is an important and viable African economic region.
This extract from the OBR gives make a concise case against Nigeria as an archetypal of empire-nation-state:“The Bill of Rights presented to the Government and people of Nigeria called for political control of Ogoni affairs by Ogoni people, control and use of Ogoni economic resources for Ogoni development, adequate and direct representation of rights for Ogoni people in all Nigerian national institutions as well as the right to protect the Ogoni environment and ecology from further degradation.These rights which should have reverted to the Ogoni after the termination of British rule have been usurped in the past thirty years (almost fifty years now) by the majority ethnic groups of Nigeria. They have not only been usurped; they have been misused and abused, turning Nigeria into a hell on earth for the Ogoni and similar ethnic minorities. Thirty years of Nigerian independence has done no more than outline the wretched quality of the leadership of the Nigerian majority ethnic groups and their cruelty as they have plunged the nation into ethnic strife, carnage, war, dictatorship, retrogression and the greatest waste of national resources ever witnessed in world history, turning generations of Nigerians, born and unborn into perpetual debtors.The Ogoni Bill of Rights rejects once and for all this incompetent indigenous colonialism and calls for a new order in Nigeria, an order in which each ethnic group will have full responsibility for its own affairs and competition between the various peoples of Nigeria will be fair, thus ushering in a new era of peaceful co-existence, co-operation and national progress.This is the path which has been chosen by the European tribes in the European Community, including the Russians and their neighbours in the new Commonwealth which they are now fashioning while the Yugoslav tribes are being forced into similar ways. The lesson is that high fences make good neighbours. The Ogoni and the Ogoni Bill of Rights are therefore in the mainstream of international thought.”Besides its logical argument against the failed yet tenaciously maintained federal system of Nigeria, the Ogoni Bill of Rights is in direct contrast to the empire-type of nation-State. The extract above shows that the empire-nation-State is old fashioned, and has already been abandoned in Europe. By the reference of the OBR, let us briefly look at European history with focus on how its empire-nation-States developed. Today’s Spain, Portugal, Southern France, some of the major islands and vast parts of the mainland stretching across the Mediterranean Sea as far as Greece, were originally part of a con-federal dynasty called the Crown of Aragon formed in 1137. The amalgamation occurred via the marriage of a prince and princess – Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona and Petronilla of Aragon. The Crown of Aragon expanded its empire by annexing other smaller kingdoms and territories, reaching its greatest extent as an empire in the 1380s. Before its dissolution, it was comprised of the Kingdom of Aragon (which is different from the Crown of Aragon), County of Barcelona, Kingdom of Valencia, Kingdom of Mallorca, Roussillon, Andorra, Kingdom of Naples, Corsica, Kingdom of Sardinia, Kingdom of Sicily, Duchy of Neopatria and Malta as subordinate States or territories ruled from Barcelona where all its kings sat, even though they were usually crowned at Zaragoza. The Wikipedia website gives a graphic summary of the development from the dynastic union into a modem nation State as follows:Ferdinand married Queen Isabella of Castile in 1469, a dynastic union which became the constituent event for the dawn of the Kingdom of Spain. At that point both Castile and the Crown of Aragon remained distinct territories, each keeping its own traditional institutions, parliaments and laws. The process of territorial consolidation was completed when Charles I of Spain in 1516 united all the kingdoms on the Iberian Peninsula minus Portugal under one monarch, thereby furthering the creation of the Spanish State, albeit a decentralized one.The Crown of Aragon and its institutions were abolished only after the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1713) by the Nueva Planta decrees, under which all its lands were incorporated, as provinces, into a united Spanish administration, as Spain moved towards a centralized government under the new Bourbon dynasty. The punishments on the territories that had fought against Philip V in the War of Succession are used by some Valencian and Catalan nationalists as arguments against modern day Spain.History also has it that there was the Polish - Lithuanian Commonwealth, a nation-State that emerged in 1569, initiated by the Union of Lublin under the rulership of Sigisdmund 11 Augustus, the last monarch of Jagiellon. Its constituents were the Crown of Polish, Duchy of Lithuania, and even today's Belarus, Latvia and larger parts of Ukraine, Estonia, and western Russia were all parts of what became known as the aristocratic republic with a political system called the Noble's Democracy or Golden Freedom. Noble's Democracy because the parliament was filled and controlled by the powerful, the rich and elites or szlachta. Thereafter the empire faced several internal political crises, especially in the 18th century. In the attempt to salvage it from collapse, the parliament tried different reform programmes which culminated into the document called the May 3rd Constitution of 1791, but the reforms failed and the empire dissolved, it was not until 1918 that Poland and Lithuania were re-established as separate independent nations. Its demise notwithstanding, the system of governance under the Polish-Lithuania Empire was the precursor of the modem concepts of broader democracy, constitutional monarchy and federation.The system was elitist, anchored on a clandestine creed called pacta conventa (Latin), an "agreed-to-agreements" normally negotiated with a king-elect. This pacta conventa which bind the king was derived from an earlier creed known as the King Henry's Articles. Wikipedia comments on this thus:"The monarch's power was limited, in favor of a sizable noble class. Each new king had to subscribe to King Henry's Articles, which were the basis of Poland's political system—over time. King Henry's Articles were merged with the pacta conventa, specific pledges agreed to by the king-elect. From that point onwards, the king was effectively a partner with the noble class and was constantly supervised by a group of senators...when presented with periodic opportunities to fill the throne; the szlachta exhibited a preference for foreign candidates who would not found another strong dynasty. This policy often produced monarchs who were either totally ineffective or in constant debilitating conflict with the nobility…substantial increase in the power of the magnates, and the transformation of szlachta democracy into magnate oligarchy. The Commonwealth's political system was vulnerable to outside interference, as Sejm (deputies or parliamentarians) bribed by foreign powers might use their liberum veto to block attempted reforms. This sapped the Commonwealth and plunged it into political paralysis and anarchy for over a century, from the mid-17th century to the end of the 18th, while its neighbors stabilized their internal affairs and increased their military might".The battle for dominance described by Wikipedia was a microcosm of the battle to have the economy of the Polish-Lithuania commonwealth hijacked in favor of "enserfment”— an agro economic system that allows only well placed people to become landowners, having folwarks or large farms that were worked by serfs to produce food for both the local consumption of the empire and for export to other empires (countries). The system reportedly worked well in favor of the elite such that even the szlachta advocated for the workload of ordinary people to increase (increased working hours yet lesser wages), "while similar conflicts among social classes may be found all over Europe, nowhere were the nobility as dominant at the time as in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth," says an anonymous contributor.The manner in which the Nigerian federation was formed and how it has been run are in tandem with every sense of the historical, dated empires that operated in Europe, and the Ogoni struggle raised very pertinent issues that pose a cogent threat to the continuation of the prevalent internal slavery. It should thus strongly be noted that the aspirations of the Ogoni struggle cannot be realized without the radical re-examination and dismantling of the Nigerian status quo that builds aristocrats out of public office holders.In mobilizing the Ogoni masses to oppose this antecedence, Ken Saro-Wiwa advocated a rejection of the Nigerian type of federation, because its’ rulers owe their allegiance first to their respective chiefdoms; secondly, they constitute themselves into what the bible describes as a brood of vipers and this is because the federation lacks endogenous characteristics and originality. Directly connected to this is the lack of clear political ideology and a specific national identity that guarantees the consistency and functionality of the nation. A country that was colonized by Britain, today, leans hypocritically towards an America styled federal system even when the intention of aristocrat-politicians from the majority ethnic groups is to enshrine a unitary – not united – structure that is apropos to the extinction of the minorities. The shift from the European kind of nation-State led to the dissolution of regions in favor of States as units of the Nigerian federation. It was hoped that the latter system would facilitate a functional federation, where everyone would proudly belong, but a mere hope it has remained, as the Nigerian multi ethnic character out-wits the American type of federalism. In advocating for the implementation of the American kind of federation as a possible solution to the Nigerian geo-political configuration, it is not considered that the history and evolution of the US’s federal system was conceived peculiarly and according to the background of their history and fight for independence in the United States. While fighting for political independence from their colonial master; Great Britain, the Americans decided to construct a federal system that would push the European empire-nation-State to the periphery, and possibly counter it. But the new form of federation was equally congruent with the same capitalist inclination of the empire-nation-State of Europe and modern America emerged as a nation with a strong expansionist ideology. Thus, thirteen individually separate and independent territories entered into a political covenant for the formation of a confederation in 1777, which came into effect on March 1, 1781. The political covenant by the different territories was a political pact to enhance their defense against the former colonialist; hence, the formation of the union was simultaneously pursued with the war against Britain. Even though the war motivated the 13 colonists into the decision to form a confederation, the process was neither rushed nor the agreement forced upon any of the components of what was first known as the Confederate States of America and later as the United States of America. The “go-slow” strategy was an indication of the level of apprehension for a possible usurpation and self installation of anyone of the territories as the new emperor State over the rest.The Article that established the confederation was a thirteen-part document that basically asserts the precedence of the separate territories over the union, the opening paragraph of the Article of Confederacy read in part that: “with each State retaining its sovereignty, freedom, independence, every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by the formation of the Confederation expressly renounced”. Thus, the United States was a league of different States united for agreed purposes like the defense of its peoples. Precise and guaranteed as the union seemed, it was not very long after the formation of the Confederation, when a group which called itself the federalists emerged, arguing in favour of the federal structure that concentrated power in the central authority.The key criticism by those who favored a more powerful central State (i.e. federalists) was that the government (i.e. the Congress of the Confederation) lacked taxing authority; it had to request funds from the States. Also various federalist factions wanted a government that could impose uniform tariffs, give land grants and assume responsibility for unpaid State war debts. Another criticism of the Articles was that they did not strike the right balance between large and small States in legislative decision making process. Due to its one-State, one-vote plan, the larger States were expected to contribute more but were still only granted one vote. The Articles were replaced by the United States Constitution. The argument of the federalists gained currency as it stemmed and rolled on the wheels of politicians and businessmen who saw that a loosely styled central government offered them no real power and authority that promoted personal riches through corrupt means. By 1790, the 13 States that formed the Confederation had abandoned the Article of Confederacy and opted for the new constitution, and using The Land Ordinance of 1785, America annexed or cajoled its small and weak neighbors as subordinated parts (States) of a federation (USA). |
|
Ogoni Gospel Collection
|
