ABUJA, Nigeria — Former Senator Bennett Birabi has criticised President Bola Tinubu’s decision to posthumously honour Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other members of the Ogoni Nine, describing them as “killers” rather than martyrs.
Birabi, who hails from the same Ogoni region of Rivers State, made the comments during an interview on Arise Television on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, days after President Tinubu conferred national honours and granted state pardons to the Ogoni Nine during Nigeria’s Democracy Day celebrations on Thursday, June 12, 2025.
The Ogoni Nine were environmental and human rights activists executed in 1995 by the military regime of General Sani Abacha after being accused of involvement in the murder of four Ogoni chiefs.
Their trial and execution drew global condemnation and led to Nigeria’s suspension from the Commonwealth.
But Birabi challenged the prevailing narrative that views the nine men as martyrs.
“I think the President was being misled and misadvised. What Ogoni needs is not recognition of killers,” he said.
He alleged that the individuals honoured were known to have participated in violent acts within the community and exploited the poverty and desperation of local youths.
“The people who did the killing did not wear masks, so they were all known and seen by our people, and they were no strangers,” Birabi stated.
He criticised the portrayal of the Ogoni Nine as victims of political persecution, noting that “martyrs are people who fought for their people and died for a cause.”
While acknowledging that Saro-Wiwa championed Ogoni rights through the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), Birabi said the violence associated with the murders of the four Ogoni chiefs in 1994 damaged the movement’s legacy.
“What was the cause they fought and died for? The same cause that we established MOSOP for was the same cause these people were fighting for,” he said, suggesting that the movement had been hijacked by violence and internal strife.
The former senator also recounted a personal encounter with Saro-Wiwa, whom he accused of instigating hostility against him in his own village.
“He called a meeting in my village and got all the youths… and said that unless and until Ibirabi is no longer there, nobody in this village can make progress,” he claimed.
“He didn’t tell them to kill me, but that was enough.”
Birabi, however, acknowledged that Saro-Wiwa was not physically present at the scene of the killings and could at most have been culpable for instigation or manslaughter.
“That wasn’t persecution. The Ogoni Nine were properly accused because they were seen and known,” he said.
“The only person I tried to bargain for, and I did my best but it did not work, was Saro-Wiwa himself.”
He revealed that he had appealed to the Emir of Kano at the time in hopes of persuading Abacha to remove Saro-Wiwa from the execution list, but those efforts failed.
“But of the people who supervised the killing are people receiving awards today,” Birabi added, criticising the symbolic pardon and national honours as a distortion of justice.
The Presidency has not yet responded to Birabi’s comments.
