Following this incident there were spontaneous peaceful demonstrations all over Ogoniland to protest these destructive acts by Shell, Willbros and soldiers of the Nigerian Army. Calm was however restored when MOSOP's Steering Committee despatched Ken Saro-Wiwa and two others to speak to the people. Shell subsequently claimed that it had ceased operations and pulled out of Ogoni because of the hostility of the people to its activities. Not a single Shell worker was visited with 'hostile acts' by MOSOP members, however. All they did was empower their fellow Ogoni to stand up for their rights.

The news that the oil giant had been 'forced' out of one of its oilfields in the Niger Delta sent shock waves through the country's security apparatus. There was an immediate national alert, and references to 'another Biafra' were routinely made in the security reports that streamed to Abuja from Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital. On 7 May, one week after the Biara shootings, MOSOP leaders were invited to Abuja to a meeting with the top echelon of the military junta's security establishment. The Ogoni were represented by Ken Saro-Wiwa, Dr. G.B. Leton, A.T. Badey and Chief E.N. Kobani. Badey and Kobani, along with two other chiefs, were later to be killed by an angry mob who accused them of collaborating with Shell and the government to subvert the MOSOP cause. The junta was represented by Major-General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau, National Security Adviser, Brigadier-General Ali Akilu, Director of National Intelligence, and Alhaji Aliyu Mohammed, Secretary to the Federal Government . The Ogoni leaders were asked to prepare a paper detailing their demands, a list of unemployed Ogoni youth and a summary of the relationship of oil-producing communities in other parts of the world with their various governments and the oil companies. After the meeting the four Ogoni leaders departed and nothing more was heard from the junta. To all intents and purposes, the Ogoni demands had been ignored.

Seeds of discord

Shell was determined to return to Ogoni. The five oil fields were producing an estimated 30,000 barrels a day before the company announced in 1993 that it had pulled out of the area. Compared to the 1 million barrels Shell extracts from the other oil fields this was really a trifle. Shell officials were, however, anxious to see that the Ogoni 'virus' did not spread to the other oil-producing communities in the Niger Delta, and the only way to ensure this was to suppress MOSOP and use this as an example for other communities who might be tempted to tread a similar path in the future. And Shell set about this with great cunning.

Shortly after the four Ogoni leaders returned from their trip to Abuja, Ken Saro-Wiwa embarked on yet another European tour to drum up support for the Ogoni cause. While he was away Dr Garrick Leton, MOSOP's President and the late Chief Edward Kobani, the Vice President, reportedly convened several public meetings in mid-May and attempted to convince the Ogoni people to allow Willbros, the Shell contractor, to resume the laying of pipelines. When the people of the Gokana village through whose land the pipelines were due to pass, sought reasons for this sudden about face, they did not receive any satisfactory explanation. They subsequently refused to let Willbros step into their land. Ken Saro-Wiwa returned from his trip on 1 June, in time for a crucial meeting of the Steering Committee where a motion to boycott the presidential elections scheduled for 12 June was to be debated. By this time however, it was clear that the cancer of discord had been introduced into MOSOP's body syste m by agents provocateurs.

Going by the philosophical underpinning of MOSOP as reflected in the Ogoni Bill of Rights, the 12 June motion ought to have been a simple matter. MOSOP officials had been advised to shun party politics and the two political parties, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republic Convention (NRC) which General Babangida had created by military fiat. The Constitution under which the presidential elections were being held also did not reflect the wishes and aspirations of the Ogoni people as contained in their bill of rights, and so the logical thing to do

was to boycott the election and thus demonstrate to the government and indeed the entire world that MOSOP had no part in yet another election charade whose results would only perpetuate the regime of injustice and exploitation they were working peacefully to overthrow. Some pro-government community leaders, according to press reports at the time, saw things differently, though. They allegedly wanted Shell to resume oper ations in Ogoni. They also wanted MOSOP to participate in the presidential elections.

These men, however, ran into a wall of opposition during the debate. Those who canvassed the position that Ogoni people boycott the elections carried the day. Attempts were reportedly made to pressure Ken Saro-Wiwa into rescinding the decision of the Steering Committee. He, however, insisted that he would not be party to such an act. A few days later, Dr Leton and Chief Kobani announced that they had decided to resign their positions as President and Vice President of MOSOP respectively. 12 June came and the boycott was a resounding success, in spite of desperate attempts by some chiefs to lure the Ogoni into voting by sending out false information that Saro-Wiwa, who had travelled to Europe in the line of his publicity and diplomacy duties as MOSOP spokesman, had asked them to vote on the day.

Henceforth, Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other MOSOP activists who believed like him that dialogue could only be initiated with Shell and the junta based on the demands of the Ogoni people in their bill of rights, became marked men. In line with the resolution during the meeting of senior Shell executives in Rotterdam and London the previous February, Saro-Wiwa was followed everywhere by government and Shell security operatives and his activities closely monitored. Irene Bloemink, of the Amsterdam-based environmental pressure group, Milleu Defensie, also narrated how Shell officials monitored Saro-Wiwa's movements while he was on a visit to that city in February 1994 and even followed him into a meeting hall were he was to address Dutch environmental campaigners.

The Ogoni leader had previously been detained by the military junta in April 1993 on frivolous charges. Following MOSOP's success in organising a National Ogoni Vigil, a candle-light event to keep the struggle alive, attended by thousands, the military junta enacted the Treason and Treasonable Offences Decree of 1993 on 2 May, specifically equating secession with treason, punishable by death. It became clear that the ground was being prepared for a major offensive against Ken Saro-Wiwa and MOSOP. On 21 June, he was arrested and detained, along with two other MOSOP activists, N.G. Dube and Kobari Nwile. Criminal charges were brought against them for belonging to MOSOP. While they were in detention in Owerri, matters came to head in the movement as a faction led by Leton, who had earlier resigned his office as president, attempted to re-structure MOSOP by suggesting that it cease to be an umbrella organisation for NYCOP, COTRA and the other sub-groups. Leton and his group also levell ed several allegations against Saro-Wiwa, among which was that he sought to 'hijack' the organisation and also encouraged his supporters to employ 'militant tactics.' The rank and file members of MOSOP did not see any merit in Leton's case, however, and on 6 July, MOSOP's Steering Committee elected Ken Saro-Wiwa President and spokesman of MOSOP in absentia. Ledum Mitee, a lawyer, was elected Vice President.

Shell's cat among the pigeons

The Ogoni are a predominantly fishing and farming community who have always lived in peace and harmony with their neighbours - the Andoni, the Okrika and the Ndoki. However, following the failure of the pro-government community leaders to 'persuade' the majority of MOSOP activists to 'see reason' with Shell, a plan, involving security operatives in Rivers State working with directives from Abuja, was hatched to cause mayhem in Ogoni under the guise of communal clashes. In July 1993, one hundred and thirty-two Ogoni men, women and children returning from a trip to the Cameroons were massacred on the Andoni river by uniformed men wielding automatic weapons. In August, the Ogoni market village of Kaa on the Andoni border was attacked by a troop of men using grenades, mortar shells and automatic weapons. Two hundred and forty-seven people were slaughtered and the community primary and secondary school buildings set upon and destroyed. Even as this grisly carnage was going on the Ogoni villages of Tenama and Tera'ue, again on the Andoni border, were ransacked and several people killed.