Death is a natural phenomenal and it has always been part of every living thing on earth. From the Christians point of view, death has be part of human existence from the very time that our forefathers (Adam and Eve) sinned in the Garden of Eden. Just like the Bible rightly says "Any Soul that sin shall die". It is no longer news that as societies move from primitive societies to more sophisticated societies, Life expectancy rates have been declining. That is people live longer previously than now. And this varies from place to place on earth's surface. Reasons for these trend is not far fetch and could be a discuss for another time. Death a natural phenomenal as it is, when it becomes endemic to a particular group of people, the people become more afraid, hence superstitions set in. The affected people may look for answers or reasons to justify it or abate the occurrences. This is a typical case of my people 'the Ogoni people'.
The Ogonis are located in the Southern part of Nigeria and occupy four (4) Local Government Areas of Rivers State in South-South Nigeria. They are located very few kilometers from Rivers State capital Port Harcourt.
I was born in Port Harcourt. In my growing up years, I had noticed that my parents barely took us to the village in Ogoniland. And if we travel at all, we barely spend days there. I had always wanted to know why we spend few days and always in a hurry to leave our home town.
My mother and father had always warned my sisters and I not to frequent our home town. In 2008 when my father died, we went for the burial rites and spent just six days. This is the highest we've ever stayed in the village. Then I persisted that my mother should tell me the reason why we should be avoiding the village. She told me that people die a lot in the village and that evil persist much more in the village than in the cities. Such things as witchcrafts and sorceries are very common and hence people in village die in their primes than those in the cities. I had always wondered why some of the Obituary Announcements and burial posters I saw in the village had always been people in their forties and early fifties; no one has exceeded that range. I never wanted to have anything to do with the village anymore I said to myself. The Ogonis are known to hold traditional religion strongly in Nigeria. But that shouldn't be enough reason to be fetish and barbaric to ourselves. Although many questions had always ran through my mind. What could have been the reason behind this? Could my parents be wrong? Why are some persons so cruel to take other person’s life through witchcraft and sorceries?
Illiteracy is a disease and education is a great tool to solve any problem and still remains critical in the development of any nation.
In 2013 I was admitted into the University of Port Harcourt to study Geography and Environmental Management. I had always loved any Environmental courses because during my growing up years I had often heard about the Late Ken Saro Wiwa, who was an environmental activist from Ogoniland. I had always wanted to be like him.
My studies gave me the opportunity to probe into the activities of late Ken Saro Wiwa and his struggles in Ogoniland, hence solve the longtime beliefs and mysteries behind the death of people in their primes in Ogoniland. Which people have been ignorantly attributing to witch crafts and sorceries.
Ken Saro Wiwa
In 1990 something tremendous happened. The activism of the late Ken Saro Wiwa has been fully-fleged. He has drown the attention of the world to the activities of oil multinational companies in Ogoniland. He has shown to the world the depleted nature and health issues of the Ogonis by the activities of the Royal Dutch Shell.
Ken was an indigene of Ogoniland whose homeland, has been targeted for oil extraction since 1950s. And the land had suffered extreme environmental damages. These had arising from unfriendly environmental techniques in oil exploration and exploitation. His outcry had made him an enemy to the Nigerian State under military rule then. He was then brutally killed on November 10th 1995.
Level of Environmental Pollution on a community in Ogoniland.
His death angered the international communities which responded with sanctioning Nigeria from the CommonWealth of Nation. His death also paved way for United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to assess and reveal the extent of environmental and threat to human health of the activities of the Royal Dutch Shell in Ogoniland.
Shell Clean up
Oil imparted site.
The assessment revealed that full Environmental Restoration may take up to thirty (30) years with initial calls for US$1Billion to kick start the cleanup. This is to show the extent of environmental degradation. The report also says that Drinking water contamination so serious that immediate emergency action needed. It further says that some areas which appear unaffected at the surface are in reality severely contaminated underground and action to protect human health and reduce the risk to affected communities should occur without delay. Also part of the UNEP scientific assessment was the presence of Benzene in wells at over 900 per cent higher than the accepted World Health Organization guidelines.
Polluted water of Ogoniland.
Another water imparted site of Ogoniland.
Why am I pondering on the UNEP report, it seems that the people of Ogoniland have been living on borrowed life. And the people have been blaming it up on witchcrafts and sorceries and on one another because of ignorance. Pollutants like hydrocarbon may enter plants in solution, through leaf epidermis, through stomata or through roots. Animals, including humans can also be affected. This can happen by pollutants entering the body by ingestion, by inhalation or by absorption through the skin. Substances from hydrocarbon may be acutely toxic; causing rapid death they may exert their effect over long period of time, weakening the individual so that it succumbs to another pollutants or disease. A pollutant like Benzene has sub-lethal effect, that is it does not cause death immediately but it makes existing problem worse. Traditionally, the Ogonis are farmers and had relied on it's lands over the years.
Until recently the Federal government has shown commitment to the cleanup of Ogoniland. The first mission should be to provide alternative for portable water throughout Ogoniland. Now that I know the root cause of speculation and fear in Ogoniland, I have been traveling often and am trying to sensitize my people. After all this is what I owe my people.
Note: The pictures in this writing are all from an online sources.