The late Nigerian writer and teacher Ken Saro-Wiwa put the disastrous oil extraction in the Niger Delta on the international agenda and dispelled the notion that oil would bring prosperity to Nigeria. 

"If we had a proper system, they would find that there is not so much oil money around anyway," Saro-Wiwa told DW in November 1993.

"Oil is causing a lot of devastation, which the country has not paid for and which it will pay for in due course. So people should go and look for other sources of sustenance instead of eyeing oil," he said.

A few days later, General Sani Abacha established a brutal dictatorship in Nigeria. Two years after that, Saro-Wiwa — along with eight other activists, known as the "Ogoni 9" — was dead. 

Their supporters say the activists were murdered by a corrupt system wanting to continue profiting from oil extraction. Yet Saro-Wiwa's legacy lives on.

Nnimmo Bassey, now one of the most prominent environmental activists in the Niger Delta, calls him a "courageous man" and a "visionary."

"He was very much ahead of his time," Bassey told DW.

Destructive oil extraction begins in the Niger Delta

In the 1950s, Shell, then a Dutch company, discovered oil in the Niger Delta. It kicked off unchecked environmental destruction — against the will of the Ogoni people living there. Soon, oil pollution became visible: water was no longer drinkable, large areas were no longer suitable for farming. Decades of protests by Ogoni representatives were unsuccessful.

The resistance gained new momentum when Saro-Wiwa, already known as an author and playwright, founded the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) in 1990. MOSOP argued Shell's activities were destroying the region's environment and did not benefit local people.

The organization garnered global attention, and in 1994, Saro-Wiwa and MOSOP won the prestigious international Right Livelihood Award.

Saro-Wiwa's resistance

Nnimmo Bassey, also an author and Right Livelihood laureate, says Saro-Wiwa was fearless: "People like to be more politically correct. But he just called what was going on: an environmental genocide against the Ogoni people."

In 2011, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) published the first scientific analysis of the pollution, confirming oil production in Ogoniland had indeed led to an ecological disaster.

Saro-Wiwa's protest movement also threatened to disrupt oil operations. In early 1993, MOSOP organized a peaceful protest involving nearly 300,000 Ogoni in Rivers State. Shortly afterward, Shell withdrew most of its staff for safety reasons and drastically cut production. Saro-Wiwa told DW in November of the same year: "When the federal government takes away 97% of the oil money, but does not take away 97% of the pollution, it is doing something wrong."

Nigeria's military dictatorship 

After Abacha seized power, tensions escalated. The government exploited divisions within the protest movement. In May 1994, four Ogoni leaders were murdered. The government blamed Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni leaders. Despite international support and awards for Saro-Wiwa and MOSOP, the Ogoni 9 were sentenced to death and hanged on November 10, 1995.

The executions sparked global outrage, leading to Nigeria's suspension from the Commonwealth of Nations for more than three years.

Some witnesses later claimed they had been bribed by the government or said Shell had promised them jobs. Shell's exact role could never be fully clarified. In 2009, the oil company paid a total of $15.5 million (around €13 million today) to the relatives of the Ogoni 9. Shell said this was a "humanitarian gesture" and not an admission of guilt.

Little progress 

Economist Priscilla Airohi-Alikor from the Centre for the Study of the African Economies sees slow progress on oil pollution in the Niger Delta. She says one key success of the MOSOP movement is that "Shell has not drilled oil in Ogoniland since 1993."

Yet leaks from oil facilities continued to pollute the environment.

After the Abacha dictatorship, Nigeria established the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). In 2016, then-President Muhammadu Buhari followed a UN recommendation to launch a multi-billion dollar effort to clean up the Niger Delta.

Shell's responsibility remains a crucial point: in 2021, after a long legal battle, the company was ordered to compensate farmers in the Niger Delta.

"In most cases, they've actually settled with a lot of these communities," says Airohi-Alikor.

"But it's on the admission that they shouldn't be held liable for what these communities are suffering. The company has also evaded a cleanup of the community."

Shell argues most of the pollution was due to sabotage, Airohi-Alikor says.

In June, a British court ruled that Shell can indeed be held liable for environmental damage in the Niger Delta. Whether this will lead to binding verdicts is unclear. 

Pardon 'not enough'

Thirty years after the execution of the Ogoni 9, Nigeria's government announced the pardon of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his fellow activists, granting them high national honors. The four previously murdered Ogoni leaders were also honored.

For Nnimmo Bassey, this is a mockery: "That is not enough. You do not pardon a man who did not commit an offence."

Accepting a pardon, he says, is an admission of guilt. Bassey is also outraged that Nigeria is holding talks on new oil production in the Niger Delta — while the old damage is far from repaired. Shell now wants to shift to deep-sea drilling, thereby evading national jurisdictions. He argues it is time to leave the fossil fuel era behind.

The cost of oil

Depending on the data source, oil, petroleum products, and gas generates 85% to 92% of Nigeria's export revenues.

Nigeria is also being battered by climate change related flooding and heat waves — and urgently needs resources to cope with these impacts, says expert Priscilla Airohi-Alikor. Ken Saro-Wiwa's warning not to rely too heavily on oil revenues sounds prophetic to her: "If the country does not take action in due course, oil revenues would go into cleaning up of these communities. If we account for the environmental cost of gas flaring or oil spillage you find that the nation is at a loss."

This article was originally published in German.