20101205
This Day

Compelling evidence published by a UK-based newspaper, The Independent on Sunday, has shed light on how the late playwright and Ogoni activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa, was framed up

The newspaper accused the military commander of the Internal Security Task Force stationed in the Niger Delta region, Lieutenant-Colonel Paul Okuntimo, of ordering the killings of four Ogoni elders whose deaths led to the trial and hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa, with eight others in 1995.

Okuntimo was also said to have taken bribes from Shell to carry out the killings.

The newspaper said it gained exclusive access to witness accounts that were to be used in evidence in the case of Wiwa vs Shell, brought by Saro-Wiwa's family.

The case was settled last May for $15.5 million, just days before it was due to start in New York. The settlement meant the testimonies were never made public.

In the testimony, one of the witnesses, Boniface Ejiogu, who was an orderly to Okuntimo, offered compelling evidence as to who might have murdered the four Ogoni elders at a meeting on May 21, 1994.

According to him, Saro-Wiwa was due to speak at the meeting between Okuntimo and the four elders but was turned away by the military.

Then Ejiogu said he heard Okuntimo tell his task force commander to "waste them... in the army you waste them is when you are shooting rapidly".

Within 24 hours, Saro-Wiwa was arrested and charged with the murders by late head of state, General Sani Abacha, and later hanged.

It was implied that he had had the elders killed because of their moderate stance on Ogoni issues. Despite an international outcry, he was hanged in November 1995, following a trial described by the then British Prime Minister, John Major, as "judicial murder".

The new evidence also reveals that Okuntimo, whose troops were implicated in murder and rape, was in the pay roll of Shell at the time of the killings and was driven around in a Shell vehicle.

Since the time of Saro-Wiwa's death, Shell has insisted that it had no financial relationship with the Nigerian military, although it has admitted paying it "field allowances" on two occasions. It has consistently denied any widespread collusion and payments.

The new evidence provides fresh insight into Shell's alleged financial and logistical involvement with the Nigerian military and with Okuntimo.

Ejiogu also testified to standing guard as victims were raped and tortured while Lt-Col Okuntimo was in command.

Asked if he ever saw his commander receive money from Shell, he said he witnessed it on two occasions.Ejiogu described in detail how, just days before the Ogoni elders were murdered, he drove with Okuntimo to Shell's base in Port Harcourt, where the officer received seven large bags of money.

"I was there when other soldiers were carrying the Ghana Must Go bags," he testified. The bags were so heavy the soldiers had difficulty carrying them, and one fell open. "The thing opened," Ejiogu said. "I saw it was money in bundles. He said, wow, this is money. I say, yes man, it is money."

On another occasion, Ejiogu said he witnessed four bags being given by a Shell security official to Okuntimo at the official's house late at night.

Another witness, Raphael Kponee, also due to testify, was a policeman working for Shell. On a different occasion, he said he saw three bags being loaded into Okuntimo's pick-up truck by his driver and another driver in front of the security building at the Shell base. Shell officials have admitted that money was paid to the officer, but purely as field allowances for his men, who were protecting Shell's property in Ogoniland.

A Shell spokesman told the British newspaper: "Allegations concerning Okuntimo and Shell are not new. There is a lack of any credible evidence in support of these allegations. Shell Petroleum Development Corporation and Shell at the time spoke out frequently against violence and publicly condemned its use."