By Akpos Oghenetega,
Environmental policy expert, Dr. John Barika Idamkue has delivered a blunt warning to President Bola Tinubu: “Oil production in Ogoni won’t resume until justice is served, wounds are healed, and truth is confronted.”
Dr. Idamkue, former confidant of the late Ken Saro-Wiwa, has urged President Bola Tinubu to establish a Ken Saro-Wiwa Mitigation Fund and embark on truly participatory stakeholder engagements among four further huddles he must cross to realise the peaceful resumption of oil production in Ogoni, Rivers state.
In an explosive interview with Vanguard, Idamkue—breaking nearly three decades of silence—outlined four political and moral landmines Tinubu must navigate if he hopes to restart oil operations in the long-troubled Ogoni region of Rivers State.
Citing Tinubu’s posthumous Democracy Day honours for the Ogoni 9 and a promised presidential pardon, Idamkue said the gestures stirred up long-suppressed trauma and renewed hope—but warned that “symbolism without substance will not pacify Ogoni.”
He recalled the President's June 12, 2025, Democracy Day posthumous national honours conferred on the Ogoni 9, whose death he described as "unjust execution that should never have happened", and further gave his word to grant them presidential pardon after holding talks with Ogoni leaders earlier in January.
At the January meeting in Abuja, Tinubu had told the Ogoni stakeholders, “It's been many years since your children and I partnered to resist military dictatorship in this country,” and that “I know what to do in memory of our beloved ones so that their sacrifices will not be in vain.”
Reflecting on these developments, Idamkue stated, "The words of the president have aroused some often suppressed, traumatic memories, of the pro-democracy struggle in Nigeria spearheaded principally by the National Democratic Coalition, Campaign for Democracy, and the agitation for environmental protection and social justice of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), of which I was a key participant as a young man."
Going forward, he said, "The State pardon for our heroes is just one of 100 steps the president should take to secure the trust of the Ogoni people and gain their buy-in for any proposal about resumption of oil production in Ogoni.
"Tinubu government will not adopt violent measures to force oil resumption in Ogoni against the legitimate concerns of the Ogoni people. The engagement with the Ogoni people, to be meaningful, should entail four significant signposts.
"First, it is of high importance that key stakeholders and representatives of the Ogoni people emerge from the structures and community organisations in Ogoni.
"It does not reflect a nuanced understanding of the Ogoni struggle to have the Directorate of State Security (DSS) draw up a list of the Ogoni Delegation during the January 2025 meeting and the attendant consultations.
"Second, it is a red flag to have the Office of the National Security Adviser manage the interface with the Ogoni people. The Nigerian security superstructure has the blood of Ogoni patriots flowing from their strong rooms and vaults during decades of bloodletting and wasting operations in Ogoni.
"A slush fund established for the sole purpose of truncating the agitation of the Ogoni people has succeeded in the decimation and balkanization of MOSOP."
He added, "Third, the onus is on the President to right wrongs done to the Ogoni people. Tinubu should borrow a leaf from former US President, Barack Obama, during BP oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Obama never waited for the victims to hold meetings and hold consultations with the oil major or the government.
"Obama held BP to account and mounted intense pressure on the oil giant to pay compensation to the victims. The US President met with executives of BP in the White House and then announced that BP would pay $20bn (£13.5bn) into a special clean-up fund for the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.
Fourth, "I call on President Tinubu to consider the establishment of a Ken Saro-Wiwa Mitigation Fund for Ogoni. This will be a fund to compensate and make whole victims of state repression in Ogoniland 1992 – Present, including their families, children, and heirs. This is in line with the recommendation of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission to Nigeria 1996."
