Two months after the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), declared that he would consider a request for pardon for prominent Ogoni leaders to close the “Ogoni saga”, no action had been taken on the pledge.
On October 22, 2021, at a meeting with Ogoni leaders at the Presidential Villa, Buhari said that despite the unfortunate circumstances, the Federal Government would consider the request for pardon for an environmental activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa and others.
The President also promised to complete the strip of the East-West Road traversing Ogoniland under the Infrastructure Development Fund.
He equally said he was aware of the passage of the bill on the Federal University of Environmental Technology by the National Assembly and was awaiting its transmission for further necessary action.
However, two months later, there has not been any notable outcome from that meeting, as none of the promises made has actualised.
In an interview with our correspondent, human and environmental rights activist, Celestine Akpobari, wondered why the President was slow to take action on all the issues he spoke about in October.
Akpobari, a serving member of the Governing Council for the Ogoni cleanup, who was also present at the meeting with Buhari, expressed dissatisfaction with the delayed implementation.
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He said, “I was at the meeting with the President when he promised to consider pardon for Ken Saro-wiwa. That part of the meeting was not among the issues we presented to him. But in responding to our request, he mentioned the pardon.
“Immediately we left the place, and the news started filtering out, the family of Ken, the Ogoni people and the human rights community went all out to say that Ken did not commit any offence.
“They said he should be exonerated and not pardoned. But the government felt that, constitutionally, the only thing the President can do is to grant a pardon because if he were to exonerate Ken, he would have to revisit the issue and order a trial review.
“I have not seen any action from the presidency based on the statement Mr President made when we visited him. This shows that people who are implementing promises from Mr President are either sleeping or simply slow. And that includes the pardon he said he was going to grant.”
Akpobari said so far, the President had also not taken action on transferring the contracts on the East-West Road from the Ministry of Niger Delta and the Federal University of Environmental Technology, Ogoni, to the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund.
On Ogoni cleanup, Akpobari lamented that the past six years had been excruciatingly slow despite several contracts already awarded.
Akpobari said although the governance structure and the project office were established in November 2016 and March 2017, respectively, the project’s first four years were extremely slow despite over $300m available for its implementation.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, told Saturday PUNCH on Wednesday, that he would make inquiries regarding Saro-wiwa’s pardon. He had, however, yet to provide a response as of the time of filing this report.
