The Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Professor CHIDI ODINKALU, wants the Federal Government to compensate the Ogoni people in Rivers State over the execution of, KEN SARO-WIWA and eight others.
The playwright and environmental rights activist and his contemporaries were actively involved in the struggle for a better environmental for their people before they were executed during the military administration of late General SANI ABACHA in 1995. Twenty-years after the incident that shocked the rights community and robbed the Ogonis of their illustrious son, Professor ODINKALU has made a case of state pardon for the Ogoni Nine. Delivering a public lecture at an event to mark the twentieth anniversary of execution, Professor ODINKALU noted that the Armed Forces Ruling Council approved the killing of the Ogoni Nine without considering the records of the the military tribunal that handled their case. Also speaking at the event; the President of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, MOSOP, LEGBOSI PYAGBARA called on Ogonis to remain united in their struggle. Correspondent CHINEDU IWUNNA reports that MOSOP held a candle procession and a vigil yesterday in honour of the executed nine sons of Ogoni.