Date Published: 03/07/10

Movement for the survival of the Ogoni People

Home and Abroad 
mosopiowa @gmail.com  
 
HON. ROTIMI C. AMAECHI,
EXECUTIVE GOVERNOR, RIVERS STATE
YOUR EXCELLENCY, SIR,  
OUR OPPOSITION TO THE PROPOSED RELOCATION OF MILITARY CONTONEMENT TO OGONI

We understand that you have demonstrated a willingness to mitigate the complete lack of infrastructural development that has been the hallmark of successive administrations in Rivers State before yours. We commend these efforts and assure you our support as you continue to embark on sound developmental initiatives in our state. However, we are   protesting your administration’s plan to relocate the 2nd Amphibious Brigade, also known as Bori Camp, military barracks from Port Harcourt to Ogoni. The reasons below have informed and necessitated our decision   to oppose and reject this relocation to its cradle: 

·         Ogoni population has an alarming shortage of land for farming and industrial development. Ogoni has a population density of over 2400 persons per square mile. No other community in Rivers State is as densely populated as Ogoniland; one million people in an area that is just 400sq miles pole to pole. A military cantonment will further deprive our people of the already insufficient real-estate. Ogoni has provided land for numerous state and federal establishments, including two oil refineries, NNPC, Petrochemical complex, a police academy, a naval base and many oil installations including oil pipe lines, crisscrossing the surface of the land. We have offered enough; and all we’ve gotten back is mayhem and massacre. And we are determined to put an end to this persistent suppression of the Ogoni.

·         Establishing a military cantonment in Ogoni will not create job opportunities for the people. It will only create further suppression. Ogoni is one of the regions with the highest percentage of unemployed graduates in Nigeria.  Ogoni needs infrastructural facilities and projects that will provide job opportunities to facilitate economic activities in the area. Not a military barracks.   Given our recent bitter experience with military occupation, we are wholly convinced that a military barracks in Ogoni would open our old wounds, escalate tension in the area and shatter the fragile peace now prevailing. This is not an experience we would want repeated.  

·         The Ogoni Community is suffering from the effects of oil exploration and exploitation of more than four decades. Interestingly, both Federal and State governments had paid no attention to the people’s plight nor take any necessary or tangible steps to mitigate the suffering of the masses and pressure on the land.  Instead, the government has embarked on a tactical design to ever encroach on more of our landed property in order to further annihilate the Ogoni population.  

·          Ogoni has tasted the bitter pills of military presence, and we are not willing to subject our women and children to scenes and carnage and humiliation again—not just so soon. If it is for the purpose of preventing crimes and bringing criminals to book, crime prevention is the responsibility of a trained and well equipped police organization and other security services; not Nigerian military.  Mounting illegal road blocks at numerous locations in Ogoni, as it currently is, or relocating a military camp will not substitute for ethical and incorruptible policing.  

We cannot help but note that this plot to reinforce an already over militarized Ogoni territory may not be unconnected with an attempt to return Shell to the area by a governor who has consistently lamented non resumption of oil production in Ogoni and who has been putting pressure on our leaders to allow Shell back. We will resist this plot to the last man in Ogoni. 

We urge the Rivers State Government to immediately halt the plan to relocate a military barracks to Ogoni. We will not accept this obvious act of callous insensitivity to the plight of the Ogoni people despite all we have suffered in the hands of the military since we started demanding a fair share of our oil resources in 1990. 

We are:  
Danielson Dukor    
Chairman, MOSOP USA, IOWA Chapter
Tel: (515) 480-9249 
Tornyie Konne
Vice Chairman, MOSOP USA, IOWA CHAPTER
Tel: (515)771-2437 
Ignatius Adoobe
Secretary, MOSOP USA, IOWA CHAPTER
Tel: (515) 423-1422  
Moses Menegbo    
PROVOST, MOSOP USA, IOWA CHAPTER
For and on behalf of over 350 signatories that signed this petition, and the entire Ogoni People
Cc: -
Acting President of Nigeria – Dr. Goodluck Jonathan
The US White House – President Barack Obama
Secretary to the Rivers States Government – Hon. Magnus Abe
The Defense Minister – Dr. Shettima Mustapha
Minister of State for Defense – Mr. Ademola Seriki
Minister of Niger Delta Affairs – Chief Ufot Ekaette
Senator - Hon.  Lee Maeba
House of Assemblies – Rt. Hon. Tonye Willie Harry
House of Representative – Hon. Emma Deeyaa, & Hon. Olaka Nwogu
LGA – Chairmen
Ogoni Chiefs
Amnesty International – Yvonne Terlingen
United Nations
UNPO
The Media