OWN CORRESPONDENT, Port Harcourt | Tuesday
THE families of four slain leaders of the southern Nigerian Ogoni people have accused the late human rights activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, of instigating their murder seven years ago.
Saro-Wiwa and eight others were executed on November 10, 1995, after being found guilty by a special tribunal of murdering the four Ogoni chiefs.
The executions sparked international outrage against Nigeria’s then military regime led by General Sani Abacha.
Saro-Wiwa’s supporters dismissed the trial as rigged. But on Monday, appearing before a panel set up to investigate human rights abuses dating back to 1966, the families of the four chiefs said the activist was to blame for the murders.
“We are here to seek justice and compensation for the loss of our fathers,” a spokesman for the families, Joseph Kobani, told the panel, which opened three weeks of sittings here last week.
He said the government should compensate for having failed to protect the chiefs, and that remaining leaders of MOSOP, the organisation founded by Saro-Wiwa, should be brought to trial.
Ledum Mitee, the current president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, was the only MOSOP leader freed in 1995 by the military court that tried Saro-Wiwa.
He is due to present a petition over the execution of Saro-Wiwa and the others at the hearings this week.
Kobani meanwhile urged the panel to advise the Nigerian government not to release the bodies of Saro-Wiwa and others for reburial, as their supporters have urged.
“Their appeal for the bodies to be released should be ignored,” he said.
The panel, modelled on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, opened three weeks of hearings in Port Harcourt on January 15 after two weeks of hearings in Abuja in October, and five weeks of hearings in Lagos in November and December. – AFP