The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), is a social movement organization representing the indigenous Ogoni people of Rivers State, Nigeria. The Ogoni contend that Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), along with other petroleum multinationals and the Nigerian government, have destroyed their environment, polluted their rivers, and provided no benefits in return for enormous oil revenues extracted from their lands.
MOSOP is an umbrella organization representing about 700,000 Ogoni in a non-violent campaign for environmental justice in the Niger Delta. Peaceful demonstrations led by MOSOP and other indigenous groups in the region have been brutally suppressed by the Nigerian Mobile Police. Thousands of Ogoni were killed, raped, beaten, detained, or exiled. The Ogoni's challenge to state power was finally put down through the judicial murder of Ogoni leaders, including spokesman and founder Ken Saro-Wiwa, in November 1995.
Oil was discovered in the Niger delta in 1957. MOSOP was founded in 1990 by Ken Saro-Wiwa and Ogoni chiefs when they presented the Ogoni Bill of Rights to the Federal government of Nigeria and to the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Peoples in Geneva.
The Ogoni protests under the leadership of MOSOP was an early and non-violent phase of the conflict in the Niger Delta.
In 1994, MOSOP, along with founder Ken Saro-Wiwa, received the Right Livelihood Award for their exemplary courage in striving non-violently for the civil, economic and environmental rights of their people.
The problems facing the Ogoni people have their origins in the British colonial era: the political borders of Nigeria are an artificial creation of British colonialism, with the result that nearly 300 ethnic groups are arbitrarily consolidated into a single nation-state. The Ogoni people are an ethnic micro-minority with only 500,000 people in a country of more than two hundred million. Nigerian politics are dominated by the Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa–Fulani ethnic groups. Nigeria gained independence from Britain in 1960, and has since been mostly ruled by unelected officials from these groups. The Ogoni lack political power and constitutional protections to control their land or wealth taken from it. Other ethnic groups in the Niger Delta are also ethnic minorities.
Unequal distribution of oil benefits
Nigeria's national government is completely dependent on oil exports, with oil accounting for 80% of government revenue. Shell is the largest stakeholder, owning 47% of the national industry. The World Bank estimates that oil benefits accrue to only 1% of the general population. A 1995 Human Rights Watch interview with attorney Uche Onyeagocha documented that minority groups whose land is the source of over 90% of Nigeria's oil opposed the prevailing formula for allocating oil revenues, under which the federal, state, and local governments had almost complete discretion over the distribution of oil proceeds.
By 1995, Ogoniland hosted six oil fields, two oil refineries, and fertilizer and petrochemical plants. MOSOP estimated that $30 billion worth of oil had been extracted from their land within 30 years of discovered reserves, and they had received no benefits but borne the ecological damages of oil production including numerous spills; constant flaring of natural gas; and dumping of toxic waste.
Former World Bank Vice-President for Africa, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, estimated that $400 billion of Nigeria's oil revenue was stolen or misspent from 1960 to 1999. A Nigerian anti-corruption agency estimated that around 70% of oil revenues were wasted or lost to corruption. Nuhu Ribadu's Task Force on Oil Revenue found that approximately $29 billion in oil and gas revenues were lost over a period of ten years from cut price deals struck between multinational oil companies and government officials. The report alleges international oil traders sometimes buy crude without any formal contracts, and the state oil firm had short-changed the Nigerian treasury by selling crude oil and gas to itself below market rates.
Environmental issues in the Niger Delta
Beginning in the late 1950s, multinational oil companies began taking over land belonging to Indigenous farming and fishing communities in the Niger Delta, resulting in environmental devastation. MOSOP spokesman Ken Saro-Wiwa called it an 'ecological war':
The Ogoni country has been completely destroyed.... Oil blowouts, spillages, oil slicks, and general pollution accompany the search for oil.... Oil companies have flared gas in Nigeria for the past thirty three years causing acid rain.... What used to be the bread basket of the delta has now become totally infertile. All one sees and feels around is death. Environmental degradation has been a lethal weapon in the war against the indigenous Ogoni people.
Both Shell and Chevron have operated oil wells in Ogoniland.
Statistics from the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) indicate that between 1976 and 1996 a total of 4,835 incidents resulted in the spillage of at over 2.4 million barrels of oil (102.7 million U.S. gallons), of which an estimated 1.9 million barrels (79.7 million U.S. gallons; 77 percent) were lost to the environment. Nigeria's largest spill was an offshore well blowout in January 1980, when at least 200,000 barrels of oil (8.4 million U.S. gallons), according to oil industry sources, spewed into the Atlantic Ocean from a Texaco facility and destroyed 340 hectares (840 acres) of mangroves. Mangrove forest is particularly vulnerable to oil spills, because the soil soaks up the oil like a sponge and re-releases it every rainy season. DPR estimated that more than 400,000 barrels (16.8 million U.S. gallons) were actually spilled in this incident. Water contamination of local water supply resulted in fish kills and ruinous effects on farmland.
Nigeria flares more natural gas associated with oil extraction than any other country, with estimates about 70% is wasted by flaring. This is the equivalent to 40% of Africa's gas consumption in 2001. Statistical data associated with gas flaring are notoriously unreliable, but Nigeria may waste US$2 billion per year by flaring associated gas. Flaring is done, because it is costly to separate commercially viable associated gas from the oil. Companies operating in Nigeria also harvest natural gas for commercial purposes but prefer to extract it from deposits where it is found in isolation as non-associated gas. Thus associated gas is burned off to decrease costs.
Gas flares are potentially harmful to nearby communities, as they release poisonous chemicals including nitrogen dioxides, sulphur dioxide, volatile organic compounds, as well as carcinogens. These chemicals can aggravate asthma, cause breathing difficulties and pain, as well as chronic bronchitis.
Gas flares are often close to communities and regularly lack fencing or protection for villagers who risk working near their heat. Many communities claim that nearby flares cause acid rain which corrodes their homes and other structures, many of which have zinc-based roofing. Some people resort to using asbestos-based material, which is stronger in repelling acid rain deterioration. Unfortunately, asbestos exposure increases the risk of forming lung cancer, pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma, and asbestosis.