Account by an Ogoni widow of how her husband, one of the Ogoni Nine, was hanged, and rejection of insinuations by one of the Ogoni elders against the martyrs
The struggle for a better life for the Ogoni people has always been in the front burners when it comes to national and international discourse. Way back in the 1950s or even earlier, Ogonis already initiated a liberation front. Prominent among such efforts was the famous Ogoni Central Union which at some point was christened Ogoni Development Union.
These preliminary efforts gained the united support of every Ogoni person and even that of outsiders who saw the project as a laudable initiative. Their focus wasn’t on the crude oil that lay beneath their soil. This hunger for development was hinged on a dispassionate pursuit of agricultural prosperity which bothered more on fishing and farming.
With an insignificant number of Ogonis in civil service at the time, eyeing government jobs was not part of the privileges they hoped for as they had no voice at the top per se. Molded by the embers of inviolable unity and peaceful coexistence, betraying their common course of unity and love was a taboo no one would ever want to fall for. This was what gave birth to the popular fraternal phrase “ndaa viga” (my brother or my sister).
Progress was not far from the people based on this healthy disposition that was prevalent among them at the time. In all honesty, they became some kind of role models to the true seekers of communal bond. Elders were duly respected, women were treated with pride, youths gained their pride of place and children intensely protected. Violations of any sort were taboos.
These were qualities I admired in the Ogonis as I was born and grew up in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital. For that reason, it wasn’t a hard decision for me to accept to get married to Dr. Barinem Nubari Kiobel, OON, when he came seeking my hand in marriage. Lest I forget, my husband’s surname was supposed to be Barika. But following the envy trailing him from family sources, he has no option than to switch surname. Fortunately for him, the Waribere family offered him the foreign scholarship that saw him through school abroad.
Being a straightforward man, he wasn’t difficult to settle in with and begin to raise a family. As an undeniably brilliant scholar who was enlightened beyond telling, he did not just become my husband, he also became my father, brother, mentor and friend. Till today, I still count him as the most honest gentleman I have met because, to me, he was an open book who ensured that I also toed the line of clean hands.
When he completed his studies abroad and returned to Nigeria, as it is vividly captured in the book I already wrote on him, it wasn’t difficult to absorb him into the academia. Hence, he became one of the foremost lecturers at what was formerly known as Rivers State University of Science and Technology (RSUST). He didn’t just excel; he also carried his humanity with him in everything he did.
With eight functional degrees in his academic kit, my husband was one of the most learned Nigerians at the time. He effortlessly exuded the decorum of a decent and polished gentleman that he was to the core and ensured that he helped those who he could willingly assist without charge even when it was rare for anyone to rise to his status. His humility spoke volumes.
He spent a while at the then RSUST, now known as Rivers State University, where excellence in his academic and diligent delivery of duties brought him to the limelight. With a doctorate degree in Commerce and Tourism obtained abroad, he was more than equipped for his role. These details can also be found in the book titled: ‘Dr Barinem Nubari Kiobel: The Untold Story.’
It was on these meritorious grounds that the Rivers State Administration, under then Col. Dauda Musa Komo, found him fitting to head the Rivers State Ministry of Commerce and Tourism. Considering his pedigree and obvious capacity to man this important position, the university community didn’t delay to send him forth as their noble ambassador to the then State government. If only one knew what lay ahead, one would have acted differently.
My husband took up the office and, based on his wealth of knowledge, he was able to achieve so much in a little while. Friends and family were overjoyed at this appointment and so, he was able to get full support and encouragement to deliver on the mandate of his new office.
His Ogoni people and his Kpor community were not left out of this new feather added to his cap. For that reason, his immediate Local Government Area, Gokana, began to plan a grand reception to honour him and other illustrious sons and daughters of the LGA. To that effect, he was served a letter by the then Gokana Council of Chiefs and Elders to be in attendance at the meeting proposed for May 21, 1994, at 10:00am. His community, Kpor, equally extended an invitation to him to discuss the community’s development. Again, the government equally delegated him to the Gokana LGA and Ogoni at large to sensitise the people on the need to embrace development. These were the three items on his agenda that brought him to Gokana on the fateful day, May 21, 1994.
His driver drove him into Gokana from Port Harcourt and he stopped over at Giokoo the venue of the meeting to which he was invited only to find out that the conveners of the meeting hadn’t arrived, so he went straight to his community where he met with village heads and others deliberating on the way forward for the community.
While addressing the village heads, he got information from his paternal relation, one Mr John Barika, whose evidence to that effect can be found in the documentary titled ‘Esther And The Law’ airing across the globe now, that there was fracas at Giokoo, the traditional headquarters of the Gokana people. He quickly drove to Giokoo to ascertain what was wrong.
Upon sighting the riot my husband quickly drove to the Area Command in Bori where he met one Mopol (Mobile Police Officer) named Stephen Hasso. This same Mopol officer urged my husband to go and address the people to calm their fraying nerves.
In compliance with this security directive, my husband returned to Giokoo and made frantic efforts to calm the situation. Unfortunately, the atmosphere was super charged and instead of listening to him, they stoned him and damaged his car and labelled him ‘Komo boy’, ‘Abacha agent’, etc, because he was a serving commissioner. It took the intervention of the then Gberemene Gokana, King Bagia, to save my husband’s life at Giokoo. The same King Bagia came and testified to my husband’s innocence, providing concrete evidence as to his innocence, but the Tribunal still ignored the king’s testimony.
Read also: Is oil resumption or genuine sympathy reason for presidential pardon of Ogoni 9?
The only concrete response he got about the Giokoo incident was that the meeting to which he was invited could no longer hold. The actual reason was not communicated to him until he got to Port Harcourt to receive the sad news of the killing of the four elders known today as Ogoni Four.
He immediately tabled the matter before the then military administrator who had also dispatched him to the Gokana Local Government Area to sensitise the people on the need for development, a task that my husband already started but from his community.
Earlier, he had been invited to attend high-level meetings with the Shell Petroleum Development Company. During the said meetings, he was offered the opportunity to betray the Ogoni struggle by implicating Ken Saro-Wiwa. He refused to take the offer. He had no idea that his blunt refusal to betray the Ogoni people in favour of crude oil merchants had already angered people whose interests revolved around the black gold and so, the gods of the crude oil business seized the opportunity of the brutal killing of the Ogoni Four to rope my husband into a crime he knew absolutely nothing about.
He successfully proved his innocence in the matter. But the only option he was given for his freedom was to betray his Ogoni people in favour of crude oil marshals whose profit came from environmental degradation. The likes of Alhaji Kobani were hired to testify falsely against my husband and his compatriots. I’m glad that Alhaji Kobani confessed and apologized to me before he died, admitting that he was bribed to testify falsely against my husband.
Seeing that his innocence wasn’t what mattered to the powers that were, my husband clung to his fate firmly believing in God for whatever outcome of the kangaroo military tribunal would be. Expectedly, he was unjustly sentenced alongside his compatriots to death by hanging which was eventually executed on November 10, 1995, by the late General Sani Abacha regime.
Since his execution, I have made endless efforts in different Courts of Law around the world to seek his exoneration. I risked everything life offered me to ensure that even in his death, his last scream at the gallows was heard. I have passed through countless threats to my life and family to ensure that no negative compromise killed his innocence. I have resisted countless mouth-watering offers just to ensure that his name was cleared from the book of criminals to which he was falsely confined.
The closest answer to that request came in Nigeria on June 12, 2025, when, at the Democracy Day celebration, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu declared a State unconditional pardon on all Ogoni Nine and conferred a post-humous Honour (OON) on my husband alongside his companions.
This ‘Presidential Pardon’ has got different reactions from different quarters since it was announced. While some of the reactions, such as calls for total exoneration, which is also my real plea, are worthy of attention, some others attempt to make a mockery of heroism and its attendant virtues.
Prominent among the reactions that have made significant efforts to undermine the Presidential Pardon are the unexpected bitter utterances of a onetime senator, Benneth Birabi, whose father was the founding father of the Ogoni struggle. The elder’s hatred presented that in his interview did not just present him as one who has made a mockery of the Ogoni struggle for which his father fought, but also as an elder who has chosen to glorify the gunshots of the enemy and dancing naked in the presence of babies who are supposed to give him some respect. The elder forgot the kindness showered on him by Ken Saro-Wiwa.
In his interview with one of the traditional media, he was asked if “the persecution and killing of the Ogoni Nine was justified,” Birabi declared:
“You call it [the killing of Ogoni Nine] persecution? That was not persecution. They were properly accused, because they were seen and known. The only person that I tried to bargain for and did my best but it didn’t work was Saro-Wiwa himself. Because he was not physically present at the scene of the murder he could have been charged with manslaughter or for instigating the murder…. Some of the people who supervised the killing are the people who are receiving national awards today….”
By this hateful comment, Birabi, whom I have always respected, confirms a rare fear: that the real enemies of the Ogoni Nine were and still are people within. With this kind of hate coming from the same Ogonis, it becomes clear as to why external enemies are able to penetrate the unity bloc of the Ogonis and render the unity for which Ogonis were known useless.
At a time when Ogonis were thinking that they were getting closer to getting justice for their heroes after over three decades of continuous cries and weeping, an elder statesman whose voice ought to run in favour of justice, sits comfortably to damage the same justice that his kinsmen from whom he had previously received remarkable favours deserve.
I write these lines from the place of pains having toiled the darkest places of the Ogoni struggle and taken some of the toughest risks and countless detentions in the course of fighting for the exoneration of my husband. I still remember vividly the torture at the Bori Camp barracks in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, now renamed Port Harcourt Barracks. The brutal assault by late Paul Okuntimo who stripped me naked in public just because I kept bringing food for my husband and further turning down his sexual advances. I can go on and on.
I consider the utterances of Sen Birabi in that interview as a serious case of injustice and as one of the most disgraceful things ever said to kill the course of justice and mean and heartless disregard for the dead whose blood watered the seed of democracy that Nigeria now enjoys. The said Senator did not just insult the memory of the dead but also urinated on the grave of his late father who bore the flags of the Ogoni struggle and laid down his life for same.
This is not just malicious but maximally disgraceful, demeaning and a reckless show of shame which further translates to the scarcity of integrity in the senator’s life. I honestly ask Senator Birabi to sow the seed of love among Ogoni people especially for the sake of the upcoming generations that I didn’t witness what really happened. As an elder, I expect him to choose honesty over self-interest, love over hatred, forgiveness where there is need for it, and above all, love of Ogoni people over personal interest.
While I pray for the deceased to rest peacefully, I urge Senator Birabi to uphold the dignity and the genuine Ogoni liberation his father stood for all his life and avoid this heartless chase of personal interest over collective liberation. So long as I live, I choose to stand by the truth as I have always stood. I will continue to reject all the rich brines that have been offered me by different quarters to abandon a just course. I choose to tell the upcoming generations the truth about how their elders laid down their lives to protect their future. And I urge the government to carry out an independent investigation into the actual cause of the death of the Ogoni Four so that the actual perpetrators of that crime will be brought to face justice.
May God save Ogoni and Ogonis.
(Esther Barinem-Kiobel writes from her husband’s graveside in Kpor community, Gokana LGA, Rivers State, Nigeria.)
