LAGOS, Nigeria — Three decades after his execution shocked the world, Nigerian author and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa has been posthumously pardoned by the government that once condemned him to death.
President Bola Tinubu announced the pardon on Thursday, granting national honours to Saro-Wiwa and eight fellow activists known collectively as the Ogoni Nine. All were hanged in 1995 following a military tribunal that human rights groups at the time described as a sham.
“Their sacrifice for environmental justice and democratic freedom is now part of our national history,” President Tinubu said during a Democracy Day address. He hailed the group as “heroes of our democracy”.
But for many, the gesture though long overdue is not enough.
“We welcome the pardon,” said Fegalo Nsuke, president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), the organisation Saro-Wiwa once led. “But a pardon suggests guilt. There was never a crime to begin with.”
Saro-Wiwa, a writer and television producer turned activist, led non-violent protests against Shell’s oil operations in Nigeria’s Niger Delta. He accused the oil giant of widespread environmental destruction in Ogoniland, home to the Ogoni people.
Shell has always denied responsibility for the damage, and for any role in the executions.
In 1995, Saro-Wiwa and eight others were arrested and tried by a secret military tribunal for the murder of four local chiefs. Human rights monitors said the trial lacked transparency and due process. Despite international appeals, the men were hanged in Port Harcourt on 10 November.
The fallout was immediate. Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth and faced a wave of global condemnation.
Thirty years on, calls for justice continue to echo across Ogoniland.
“I thank the president for recognising my husband,” said Victoria Kiobel, widow of Barinem Kiobel, one of the executed men. “But what we need is not a pardon. We need the truth recognised. They were innocent.”
Efforts to hold Shell accountable have persisted in the courts. In 2021, a Dutch court ordered the company to pay compensation to farmers whose land was contaminated by oil spills. Shell agreed to a $111 million settlement.
And earlier this year, two communities from Ogoniland brought a case before London’s High Court, demanding Shell take responsibility for pollution dating back more than three decades.
Shell maintains that most of the spills were caused by sabotage and theft, not its operations.
While Thursday’s pardon was symbolic, many see it as a step towards healing in a region that remains scarred by oil, conflict and mistrust.
But for families of the Ogoni Nine, the scars are personal and still raw.
“The pardon is a start,” said Nsuke of MOSOP. “But exoneration is justice. That’s what we’re still waiting for.”
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