Nigeria: 20 CSOs, Rights Groups Oppose Oil Production Resumption in Ogoniland

What the report says

Twenty civil society organisations and rights groups have come out against plans to restart oil production in Ogoniland, Rivers State, saying wells in the Niger Delta should not be reopened until environmental damage and justice issues are resolved. The position was presented in Port Harcourt and reported by Leadership, which said the groups also rejected new oil wells in the wider region.

Speaking for the coalition, Celestine Akpobari of the Miiderkor Environmental Development Initiative argued that the process was moving ahead before communities had seen truth, cleanup and consent addressed. The groups said their opposition was not to dialogue or development in principle, but to a restart they believe would ignore the impact of oil exploration on land, water and livelihoods.

The statement also tied the debate to the memory of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other Ogoni leaders executed in 1995, as well as to earlier episodes of violence in the Niger Delta, including Odi and Umuechem. The organisations said unresolved grievances include the long-delayed cleanup of Ogoniland, which the United Nations Environment Programme documented in 2011 as heavily polluted in places. They also criticised the continued detention of the Ken Saro-Wiwa Living Memorial and argued that the activists should be fully exonerated rather than merely pardoned. The issue matters because it sits at the intersection of energy policy, environmental repair and long-standing demands for accountability in one of Nigeria’s most affected oil-producing areas.