MOSOP President /Spokesman, Dr. Goodluck Diigbo has said that the people of Ogoni are happier with their self-government, even if it may not give joy to the outgoing president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mr. Joseph Dauda (SAN).
Diigbo said that he understands how frustrated the NBA president may be since the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa couldn’t stop Saro-Wiwa’s vision.
MOSOP President said this in a statement released by MOSOP Media in reaction to Mr. Daudu’s comments at a media parley in Abuja, where he condemned the self-government of Ogoni as a secessionist bid.
Mr. Joseph Dauda said, “Government should take steps to denounce it. [There is] no constitutional provision for state flag. The constitution does not allow it. Government should come out to denounce it. [There is] no right to self-determination under the constitution. There is a difference between a state’s adoption of jingles that extol its virtues of culture from an outright act of secession. Extolling the virtue of your state is not an anthem. That is permissible. It must be done within the ambit of Nigeria. Secessionism is illegal. Isolation and independence [are] not allowed.”
Reacting, Diigbo said “Dauda is prejudiced as the former legal aide of Abacha who ordered the judicial murder of Saro-Wiwa – the founder of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) that actualized the Ogoni self-government.”
“I consider Dauda as a man lacking in clear conscience and unfit to give advisory opinion on any legal question relating to the Political Autonomy of the Ogoni people,” Diigbo maintained.
“The Abacha regime, for which Dauda worked had also murdered 3,000 innocent Ogoni children, men and women, before it ordered the hanging of the Ogoni Nine,” Diigbo recalled.
“The incoming NBA President should align with citizens who adhere to nonviolent discipline, instead to conspire with rulers who rely on the use of force of arms to govern,” Diigbo said.
Diigbo said instead to show remorse for his past role; Dauda is installing himself as the Secessionist Advocate of Nigeria by misinterpreting the indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination as a secessionist bid.
“For some incomprehensible reason, the Nigerian system is yet to confront corrupt judicial officers such as Dauda and Judge Ibrahim Auta, who presided over the kangaroo military tribunal that sentenced the Ogoni Nine to execution by hanging, which the regime enforced on November 10, 1995,” Diigbo said.
