Democracy Day Pardon, a Call for National Healing — Ex- MOSOP President. By Adamu Usman Attaboh
Democracy Day Pardon, a Call for National Healing
— Ex- MOSOP President
A former president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, MOSOP, Comrade Legborsi Saro Pyagbara, has described the recent Democracy Day pardon posthumously granted to Ken Saro-Wiwa and his compatriots as a call for national healing.
Speaking recently to newsmen in Port-Harcourt, he said: “Whilst it was our utmost desire that the Tinubu-led government will be clearing the names of the Ogoni Nine knowing that their trial, conviction and condemnation did not meet the requirements of national and international law as evidenced in the 1996 United Nations Fact-Finding Team Report on Nigeria, we however commend the government for the State Pardon granted the Ogoni Nine which had signalled the salutary first step in the process of the decriminalisation of the Ogoni Nine and, by implication, the entire Ogoni struggle. It is worthy to note that with this step, the Ogoni Nine would no longer be wrongly viewed as offenders before the law.
” We are also gratified by the fact that some of our compatriots in this case, the Ogoni Nine, were duly conferred with national honours for the immense contributions they made to the emergence of our current democratic journey. The Ogoni heroes became a symbol of the struggle against the demonic military despotism never before witnessed in the history of our country. It is an incontrovertible fact that it was the events in Ogoniland particularly the hanging of the Ogoni Nine that galvanised the international community to take drastic actions against the Nigeria government which included the suspension of the Nigeria-nation from the Commonwealth of Nations, recall of their diplomatic representations to Nigeria by the European Union , the imposition of limited sanctions against the Nigeria government, travel ban against some key government officials as well as the despatching of a high-level United Nations Fact-Finding Team to Nigeria whose report dented the image of Nigeria in the comity of nations.
” It was therefore a fitting testimonial that the government chose our Democracy Day to honour these sons of Ogoniland, whose deaths became the blood and sacrifices that watered our democratic struggle. On this note, I extend my deepest posthumous congratulations to the Ogoni Nine particularly, our inspirator and mentor, Ken Saro-Wiwa and our devotee, Mr. Ledum Mitee for receiving this honour on our behalf.
“To my fellow Ogoni travellers, I want to reiterate that we need to see this honour as a recognition of our collective struggle for environmental justice, political liberation and social transformation. It is a vindication that at last, our non-violent struggle birthed in the twin crucibles of truth and justice had been recognised by the Nigeria-state that sought to extinguish and annihilate the struggle at all costs.
“In order to cement the process of reconciliation and national healing that has been initiated by this honour, we call on the Tinubu administration to further demonstrate statesmanship by offering a National Apology to the Ogoni people for the state sponsored violence that led to the monstrosity of the human carnage that the Nigeria Military, under its scorched-earth policy, inflicted on the Ogoni community with the killing of over two thousand Ogoni souls, destruction of Ogoni communities and creating a generation of political exiles during the period of military repression of our struggle. Other nations who have found themselves in similar situations have done the same. The Australian Government under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd did offer a National Apology to the Australian Aborigenes over the matter of the Stolen Generation on 13 February 2008. We also call on the Government as part of the larger process of promoting internal reconciliation in Ogoniland to extend the honour to the Ogoni four and other notable sons and daughters of Ogoniland whose footprints in our struggle for social justice cannot be ignored.
“As a necessary follow-up, we request that the government initiate a process for the judicial review of the Justice Auta judgement including other Abacha era prosecutions which led to the incarceration and death of several others. This will help to establish and determine the true facts about these cases and the matters brought to finality paving way for permanent healing and reconciliation. Just last April 2025, the South African Government had set up an inquiry into apartheid period prosecutions. Nigeria can also do the same in our present circumstances. Such a review, we are certain, will open up the miscarriage of justice that was a signature of some the military induced-judgements of that era thereby helping to permanently clear the names of the victims in this case, the Ogoni Nine. In this way, national reconciliation and healing would have been engendered,” he concluded.
