An environmental right activist, Comrade Celestine Akpobari, has called on President Bola Tinubu to set to a Judicial Commission of Inquiry on the verdict of the special tribunal that sentenced Ogoni rights activist, Kenule Saro-Wiwa and eight otters to death.
Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogonis were hanged on November 10, 1995, during the regime of former Head of State, late General Sani Abacha, following the verdict of the special tribunal chaired by Justice Ibrahim Auta.
Recall that Tinubu had on June 12, 2025, while addressing a joint session of the National Assembly, granted pardon to the slain nine Ogonis leaders.
However, speaking on a live television programme monitored in Port Harcourt, Akpobari said, “I quite appreciate the fact that Mr. President, who is not from the Niger Delta, could take such courageous step because we had former President (Goodluck) Jonathan, who is from the Niger Delta.
“If the President does not have power to exonerate, the best thing to do is to set up a Judicial Commission of Inquiry. If government wants to do a thing, they know how to go about it. When they wanted to declare State of Emergency in Rivers State, they knew what to do. When they wanted to kill Saro-Wiwa, hey know what to do.”
Insisting that Saro-Wiwa and his compatriots never committed any crime that required pardon, the activist said it is the government and the oil companies that need to be pardoned by the people of Ogoni.
He said, “In this case, the Ogoni leadership, the Ogoni people never did anything wrong to this government. If there are a group of people that needs to be pardoned, it is the government of Nigeria and the oil companies. It is the Ogoni people that will grant them pardon. It is the Ogoni people that will say I have forgiven you and not the other way round.
“They are turning the whole thing up side down; you killed us for doing nothing. You devastated our environment, you destroyed our means of livelihood, then, you now come to say you have granted me pardon.”
He called on President Tinubu to set up a Judicial Commission of Inquiry to look into the trial by Justice Auta to investigate what went wrong; “do a total review. Then, from there exonerate them. What we should be talking about is exoneration.”
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