Podcasts about ogoni

In 2006, Nigerian-British sculptor, Sokari Douglas-Camp, was commissioned by human and environment rights organization, Platform, to create a work of art in honour of the memory of Ken Saro-Wiwa. Douglas-Camp created a life-sized replica of a Nigerian steel bus, called ‘Battle Bus: Living Memorial for Ken Saro-Wiwa'. It was an artistic symbol of movement and change. In 2015, 20 years after the execution of the Ogoni Nine, Platform planned to commemorate the Ogoni Nine execution and wanted Douglas-Camp's Battle Bus to feature at the event held in Bori, Saro-Wiwa's hometown. But when the battle bus arrived at the Lagos Seaport that year, it was impounded by the port authorities.It is now 2025*, nearly 30 years since the executions happened. Presidents have come and gone; Niger-Delta resistance has, arguably, become more violent and more commercially motivated; public memory of the Ogoni Nine has atrophied, and the battle bus, an artistic work crafted to honour the memory of the Ogoni Nine, is still under arrest by the Nigerian authorities. What is it about Saro-Wiwa that continues to aggravate and possibly even terrify the Nigerian ruling establishment? How have the Ogoni people been able to come to terms with the execution of the Ogoni Nine, and deal with the unresolved environmental crisis caused by oil exploration till this day? What does the crisis in Ogoni and the Niger Delta more broadly tell us about what it means to be Nigerian?In this episode, our final of the season, Wale Lawal finds some answers. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠republic.com.ng/podcasts/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.*Note: this podcast was produced in 2024; as such, when Wale says ‘next year', he is referring to 2025.

Nigerian environmentalists have condemned a government plan to resume oil production in the restive oil-rich Niger delta community of Ogoni. This, after talks with community leaders collapsed, raising fears of violent protests. Legborsi Pyagbara, former president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni people, or MASSOP, tells VOA's Chinedu Offor, the community is moving ahead with the talks despite widespread skepticism following years of broken promises by the government

In our last episode, we discussed the murder of four Ogoni chiefs, Albert Badey, Edward Kobani, Samuel Orage, and Theophilus Orage, at Giokoo on 21 May 1994. We also discussed how their deaths emboldened the General Sani Abacha regime to arrest various Ogonis, especially those who were members of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). Following the murders of the Ogoni chiefs, Rivers State military administrator, Lieutenant Colonel Dauda Musa Komo, and the Abacha regime finally had their way in to disrupt MOSOP. On May 22 1994, Komo held a press conference, where he accused MOSOP of the murders, using a bag of bones retrieved from the scene of the crime. But how did the government decide who to arrest? And what can the nature of the arrests that followed Komo's press conference tell us about the government's true intentions? In this episode, Wale Lawal finds some answers. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠republic.com.ng/podcasts/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

On 19 January 1994, General Abacha, who had been Nigeria's head of state for just two months, sent a federal ministerial committee to Ogoniland to meet with Ken Saro-Wiwa in Saro-Wiwa's hometown of Bori. The primary mission of the committee was to investigate the oil crisis in the Niger Delta region and make a report on how to solve the crisis. The committee consisted of Alex Ibru, the federal minister of internal affairs; Chief Donald Etiebet, the minister of petroleum resources; Melford Okilo, the minister of tourism and commerce; and Lieutenant Colonel Dauda Musa Komo, the military governor of Rivers State.  Ibru, the publisher of The Guardian, one of Nigeria's most influential newspapers at that time, was a close friend of Saro-Wiwa. Due to his friendship with Saro-Wiwa, The Guardian had given MOSOP a lot of positive coverage and publicity in the news. Saro-Wiwa imagined that with Ibru on the tour, the Ogoni cause would get the seriousness of their struggle conveyed to the country, and to Abacha. However, Lieutenant Colonel Komo who acted as the official escort and guide of the Committee, saw the tour as an opportunity to impress Abacha and show his superiors in Abuja that he had Saro-Wiwa and the Ogonis under his control. With such differing goals between Saro-Wiwa and Lieutenant Komo, what kind of collision was about to happen? In this episode, Wale Lawal finds some answers. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠republic.com.ng/podcasts/⁠⁠⁠⁠.

The Ogonis are a prominent ethnic group in the Niger Delta. And in the 1950s, the oil wealth found in Ogoniland promised a future of prosperity. It meant that the small agriculture and fishery community could be potentially transformed into an industrial hub. But this dream soon became a nightmare as the government and the oil companies had other plans. The Ogonis never saw the promised prosperity.  Instead, the Ogonis began to live in a dystopian reality with oil spillages and acute damages to properties, land, rivers and swamps that had once been used for farming and fishing. Many Ogonis lost their livelihoods and became dissatisfied with the continued degradation of their environment and their lives.  In January 1993, things came to a head when a peaceful protest by the Ogonis led by Saro-Wiwa's Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) against Shell was met with violence from the Nigerian government. But what exactly happened? How did the Ogonis' peaceful protest turn into a nightmare that many in Ogoniland today are still shuddering from? How did the Ogonis' hopes become weaponized against them? In this episode, Wale Lawal finds some answers. Learn more at ⁠⁠⁠republic.com.ng/podcasts/⁠⁠⁠. The Republic is currently on an editorial break and show notes will be available on our website by 31 January 2025.

1973 began with Ken Saro-Wiwa being more publicly critical than ever of the Nigerian government he was a part of. Increasingly, he served two masters: he was a government commissioner and he was also advocating for the autonomy of the Ogoni people over their political and economic affairs. Fresh out of a civil war, Nigeria's authorities were intolerant of any form of agitation or activism, especially for ethnic autonomy.  But Saro-Wiwa persisted. He wrote petitions against Shell, and published articles like ‘Genocide in Nigeria: the Ogoni Tragedy'. Through these acts, Saro-Wiwa effectively crossed a line and the government responded in kind. In March 1973, a radio bulletin announced that the Rivers State Government had fired Saro-Wiwa. What did Saro-Wiwa do next? Who was Isaac Jasper Adaka Boro why does he loom large in the origins of Saro-Wiwa's eventual activism?  In this episode, Wale Lawal finds some answers. Learn more at ⁠⁠republic.com.ng/podcasts/⁠⁠. The Republic is currently on an editorial break and show notes will be available on our website by 31 January 2025.

In photos of the January 4 1993 Ogoni rally, Ken Saro-Wiwa stands out. You can sense his passion, his energy but more curiously his pull. These are very dangerous times to be protesting. Only days before, the Babangida military regime had placed a ban on public gatherings. So what was it about the Ogoni movement that made it (to borrow from the American writer, Toni Cade Bambara ) ‘irresistible' to Saro-Wiwa? Saro-Wiwa was pretty well off and could have lived a much more convenient, non-political life. At the same time, Nigeria is a highly unequal society where the wealthy are often out of touch. This was true even back then; so what was it about Saro-Wiwa that made him connect not just materially with Ogoni people but philosophically, almost spiritually; enough to make them risk even death in joining him on this march?In this episode, Wale Lawal finds some answers. Learn more at ⁠republic.com.ng/podcasts/⁠.The Republic is currently on an editorial break and show notes will be available on our website by 31 January 2025.*Correction: at 29:14, Wale says General Murtala Muhammed became head of state. This is an error. General Muhammed led the 1966 coup but General Yakubu Gowon became head of state. This will be corrected in the audio as soon as possible.

African history is not yet mainstream and we're on a mission to change this. The Republic is a miniseries covering key events and figures in African history. Our second season focuses on the life and legacy of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a writer and one of nine non-violent Ogoni activists the General Sani Abacha military government brutally executed in 1995. The Ogoni are an ethnic group situated in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. For years, they have suffered pollution and environmental degradation stemming from crude oil extraction on their land. Saro-Wiwa's protests against oil companies such as Shell, including his leadership of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), frustrated the Abacha government, which relied heavily on oil exports. On 10 November 1995, after controversial court trials, the Abacha regime sentenced Saro-Wiwa along with eight other Ogoni activists to death by hanging. The eight were: Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel, and John Kpuine. Their brutal arrest and murder marked a pivotal moment not only in Nigeria's history but also in the history of global environmentalism. Nearly 30 years since the Ogoni 9 execution, host Wale Lawal traces the life and legacy of Saro-Wiwa, and the implications of the Ogoni 9 execution. You'll travel to the Niger Delta and hear about life in Nigeria under Abacha's regime, the political rise of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the troubled history of oil in the Niger Delta, the arrest and trial of the Ogoni 9, and how Abacha's execution of the Ogoni 9 continues to shape the politics of Nigeria's oil wealth and what it means to be Nigerian today. Learn more about The Republic at ⁠republic.com.ng/podcasts

Author and librettist Leah Lax ("Not From Here: The Song of America") shares a series of incredible stories in a truly one-of-a-kind episode of the podcast! Leah grew up as a Jewish genderqueer lesbian in Northern Texas, and struggled with the fact that she didn't understand how to "be a woman" in the intuitive way that all of her (straight) friends seemed to. So when she was approached by members of the ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community at the age of sixteen, Leah felt "like somebody handed me a bulleted list. And all I had to do was follow it, and...I wasn't marginal anymore at all. I was completely accepted." Leah was matched with a man at eighteen; she had seven children in a ten-year period and spent thirty years with the Hasidim. Leah shares what ultimately made her leave the only community she had ever known, and explains the unlikely path that led to her writing down the life stories of over a hundred American immigrants for a new opera! It's a truly beautiful episode, and a reminder of why, to quote Leah, "we all need to be dangerous.""Not From Here: The Song of America" comes out on March 28th! To find out all about it (as well as Leah's memoir "Uncovered: How I Left Hasidic Life and Finally Came Home"), go to leahlaxauthor.com. And don't forget to preorder on Amazon! You can also follow Leah on Instagram at @LeahLax120, and on Facebook at @LeahLaxAuthor. Lastly, check out therefugemusic.com to hear snippets from Leah's opera!

Shell announced in late 2023 that it would be shutting down all of its onshore activities in Nigeria and concentrating its efforts offshore. It leaves behind poisoned water, multiple political and economic crises, and a country that is measurably worse off today than when its oil industry began. Meanwhile the government continues to target environmental activists. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here are some notable events in world history that happened on November 10:1775 - The United States Marine Corps was established by the Continental Congress.1871 - Journalist and explorer Henry Morton Stanley located missing Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingstone in Ujiji, near Lake Tanganyika, famously greeting him with the words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?"1917 - The Bolshevik Revolution in Russia began when the Red Guards, led by the Bolshevik Party, seized government buildings in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg). This marked the start of the Russian Civil War and eventually led to the establishment of the Soviet Union.1951 - Direct-dial long-distance telephone service was introduced in the United States.1975 - The United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 3379, equating Zionism with racism. The resolution was later repealed in 1991.1989 - The Berlin Wall, which had separated East and West Berlin since 1961, was breached by East Germans, leading to the reunification of Germany.1995 - Ken Saro-Wiwa, a Nigerian writer and environmental activist, and eight other Ogoni leaders were executed by the Nigerian government, sparking international outrage.2001 - The U.S. House of Representatives passed the USA PATRIOT Act in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, granting the government expanded surveillance and investigative powers.2006 - The Great British financial institution, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), announced the acquisition of Dutch bank ABN AMRO in a deal that would later contribute to the global financial crisis of 2008.2019 - Bolivia's President Evo Morales resigned amid allegations of electoral fraud and widespread protests. He sought asylum in Mexico.These are just a few significant historical events that occurred on November 10. There are many more events that have shaped the course of history on this date throughout the years.Podcast Website:https://atozenglishpodcast.com/a-to-z-this-day-in-history-november-10th/Social Media:Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/671098974684413/Tik Tok:@atozenglish1Instagram:@atozenglish22Twitter:@atozenglish22A to Z Facebook Page:https://www.facebook.com/theatozenglishpodcastCheck out our You Tube Channel:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCds7JR-5dbarBfas4Ve4h8ADonate to the show: https://app.redcircle.com/shows/9472af5c-8580-45e1-b0dd-ff211db08a90/donationsRobin and Jack started a new You Tube channel called English Word Master. You can check it out here:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2aXaXaMY4P2VhVaEre5w7ABecome a member of Podchaser and leave a positive review!https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/the-a-to-z-english-podcast-4779670Join our Whatsapp group: https://forms.gle/zKCS8y1t9jwv2KTn7Intro/Outro Music: Daybird by Broke for Freehttps://freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free/Directionless_EP/Broke_For_Free_-_Directionless_EP_-_03_Day_Bird/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcodehttps://freemusicarchive.org/music/eaters/simian-samba/audrey-horne/https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Joplin/Piano_Rolls_from_archiveorg/ScottJoplin-RagtimeDance1906/https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-a-to-z-english-podcast/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On Daybreak Africa: Senegal's Opposition Leader and President of the National Assembly Mamadou Lamine Diallo say he will seek the presidency in 2024 on his platform of institutional reform and tackling unemployment. This, after President Macky Sall says he will not seek a third term. Plus, Nigeria warns citizens against consuming animal hides following an outbreak of Anthrax. MOSOP calls on Nigerian President Bola Tinubu to investigate what the group calls mismanagement of the Ogoni clean-up funds. For this and more tune to Daybreak Africa!

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://osazuwaakonedo.news/ogoni-group-petition-shell-others/04/11/2022/ Ogoni: Group Petition Shell, Others ~ OsazuwaAkonedo #Africa #ANEEJ #Nigeria #Nigerian #Oil #David #Ken #Ogoni #OsazuwaAkonedo #Saro-Wiwa #Shell #Ugolor https://osazuwaakonedo.news/ogoni-group-petition-shell-others/04/11/2022/ Civil Societies in Nigeria have raised a petition and currently gathering more signatures to make Shell and other oil companies pay for the degradation of the --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/osazuwaakonedo/support

James Marriott traces the flows of Britain's global oil empire in the 20th century, from a village in Nigeria to The Beatles' 1965 vinyl, Drive My Car. Penned by Paul McCartney and John Lennon in 1965, ‘Drive my Car' transported The Beatles on their way to international success. It is the soundtrack of the British empire of the 1960s, characterised by pop culture domination and high-powered men in business suits, rather than top hats and general's uniforms. This ‘late empire' was built on petrol, plastics, airplanes and vinyl records - which permeated British homes and everyday lives. Tracing the crude oil connections between Ogoni in Nigeria to refineries in Wales, and the colonial heritage of businesses like Shell-BP, James Marriott exposes the pipeline politics underlying Britain's global empire of oil. PRESENTER: James Marriott, writer and activist at Platform. He is the co-author of Crude Britannia: How Oil Shaped a Nation with Terry Macalister, published by Pluto Press in 2021. He is executive producer of THE OIL MACHINE (2022), a documentary film screening across the UK in November 2022. ART: Vinyl Record of Drive My Car, The Beatles (1965). IMAGE: 'Women at the EMI factory packing the Rubber Soul album'. SOUNDS: Atlas Sound. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES at: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines

Lazarus Tamana is the President of (MOSOP), The Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People which is a non-governmental, non-political apex organisation of the Ogoni ethnic minority people of South-Eastern Nigeria. In conjunction with his activism and work with MOSOP, he is helping farmers gain access to local markets and building out international markets for the products they produce in the Niger Delta.  We discuss the negative environmental impact the oil industry's had on his homeland. Heart Stock is a production of KBMF 102.5 and underwritten by Purse for the People  

Ken Saro-Wiwa, poeta e scrittore, ha guidato il suo popolo, gli Ogoni, minoranza del delta del Niger, nelle proteste e nelle manifestazioni in difesa delle loro terre, ferite dallo sfruttamento di giacimenti di petrolio. Una produzione Emons Record www.emonsedizioni.it See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A Dutch court has thrown out a case against Shell that had been brought by the widows of Nigerian environmental activists, who had accused the oil giant of being partly responsible for the deaths of their husbands. The men, known as the Ogoni Nine, led protests against pollution caused by oil leaks in the Niger Delta and were accused of murdering local officials and sentenced to death. Plus al-Shabab militants claim they carried out an attack on the international airport complex outside the Somali capital, Mogadishu. And Gambia says it will crackdown on ‘price gouging' – where retailers take advantage of crises to hike up the price of essential goods.

Georgia Steele (pictured) is unhappy about the 'climate vandals' running Australia and so has decided to contest the Seat of Hughes as an independent in the forthcoming Federal Election. Australia's Great Barrier Reef is about to have its health assessed by a delegation from the United Nations and you can hear an advisor to the Australian Marine Conservation Society, Imogen Zethoven, talking about this critical event with RN Breakfast host, Patricia Karvelas, at "UN delegation to assess health of Great Barrier Reef amid bleaching". Other Quick Climate Links for today are: "Political fight develops over delayed aid for flood-hit towns"; "Why Is the World Ignoring the Latest U.N. Climate Report?". "Is Australia really beating other countries at cutting emissions?"; "‘Streets were flowing': Broken Hill reeling after record rainfall and deadly flash flooding"; "As his ‘fauxgan' act wears thin, desperation is driving Scott Morrison deeper into the dress-up box"; "Repowering Australian manufacturing through renewable energy industrial precincts"; "Australia Security Leaders Climate Group on Mad As Hell"; "Can oysters save New York City from the next big storm?"; "School Strike for Climate - March 25 Strike & Election Actions!"; "How we discovered that sea turtles in Seychelles have recovered from the brink"; "Barnaby Joyce tags $500m for Queensland dam despite lack of environmental approvals"; "The ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes (CLEx)"; "Connection to Sea Country: Cultural fisheries program launched for Tasmania's Aboriginal people"; "Great Barrier Reef hit by sixth mass bleaching event, leading coral scientist says"'; "‘Obsessed by coal': former Queensland LNP minister hits out at Morrison government"; "Black Summer bushfire smoke altered ozone-depleting chemicals in atmosphere, study finds"; "Two years after devastating bushfires donated funds remain unspent"; "Motor homes for flood-affected Lismore residents empty while more temporary housing yet to arrive"; "To really address climate change, Australia could make 27 times as much electricity and make it renewable"; "‘May you always taste the sweetest fruit': uncovering the history and hidden delights of your neighbourhood"; "The audacity of oil"; "H.G. Wells, the Rational Escapist"; "Grief, like death, is still taboo for many of us. But is that starting to change?"; "Europe taps Australia's coal miners to replace Russian supplies"; "When will EV trucks be ready for large-scale adoption? It's complicated"; "Solar canopies over Indiana airport parking lot provide shade and power"; "Green groups worried new ‘unchecked powers' will lead to more logging"; "Government offers $150 million in flood funding, signals more to come"; "Implementation of Ogoni clean-up: Govt seeks effective stakeholder cooperation"; "Environmental policies are taking a back seat in the SA election. Should voters be worried?"; "How lightning killed nine Queensland cattle in one strike – and what it has to do with climate change"; "Urannah Dam funding would direct $500m to company run by LNP-linked figures"; "Most of Australia's threatened species not monitored by government, audit finds"; "Great Barrier Reef suffers widespread coral bleaching"; "More trees and EVs won't hack it"; "Largest Federal Utility Chooses Gas, Undermining Biden's Climate Goals"; "Biden to Withdraw Nomination for Fed's Top Bank Cop"; "Citing a Chevron Tanker, Ukraine Seeks Tougher Restrictions at Russian Ports"; "Nations Should Conserve Fuel as Global Energy Crisis Looms, Agency Warns"; "How the War in Ukraine Could Slow the Sales of Electric Cars"; "Europe moves forward with carbon border taxes"; "Beavers return to London more than 400 years after they were hunted to extinction"; "The Amazon is the Planet's Counterweight to Global Warming, a Place of Stupefying Richness Under Relentless Assault"; "How did a vast Amazon warehouse change life in a former mining town?"; "Hopes to make Australia rich off waste"; "Grid-scale battery 'really exciting' option as AGL Liddell power station site winds down — analysts"; "Windfall taxes on energy companies are a bad idea"; "Converting Work Vehicles To EVs Could Be Economical As Well As Environmentally Friendly"; "Green startups, flush with cash, face pressure to make climate advances"; "Plum job: UK public asked to track fruit trees for climate study"; "Disputed flood timeline shows confusion about state-federal responsibilities still reigns"; "Live near a park or civic garden? Your risk of stroke drops by 16 per cent"; "Net Zero Tracker"; "Massive peatland carbon banks vulnerable to rising temperatures"; "10 Things You Can Do For Birds"; "As the US Rushes After the Minerals for the Energy Transition, a 150-Year-Old Law Allows Mining Companies Free Rein on Public Lands"; "Recent Megafire Smoke Columns Have Reached the Stratosphere, Threatening Earth's Ozone Shield"; "Coal Mining Emits More Super-Polluting Methane Than Venting and Flaring From Gas and Oil Wells, a New Study Finds"; "At Global Energy Conference, Oil and Gas Industry Leaders Argue For Fossil Fuels' Future in the Energy Transition"; "California's Climate Reputation Tarnished by Inaction and Oil Money"; "US Blocks Illegal Imports of Climate Damaging Refrigerants With New Rules"; "Warming Trends: Why Walking Your Dog Can Be Bad for the Environment, Plus the Sexism of Climate Change and Taking Plants to the Office"; "Carbon Capture Takes Center Stage, But Is Its Promise an Illusion?"; "After Ukraine, how will the world replace Russia's oil products?"; "Activists fear PIA, oil company divestments will further impoverish Niger Delta"; "Antarctica 90 Degrees Above Normal. Nothing to See Here"; "Flood-affected Lismore residents with nowhere to go return to homes deemed uninhabitable"; "A guide to the UK energy security strategy"; "Angus Taylor's $3.5 billion carbon blunder"; "Deliver the 5-step plan to Net Zero for Australia" - Zali Steggall; "Carbon credit companies to cash in on multi-billion-dollar windfall from the government"; "Great Barrier Reef experiences severe bleaching event: 'Failure to protect'"; "Foreign oil dependence a 'massive vulnerability' as defence experts call for EVs, green transport"; "Winds of change blowing strong with $1bn in projects in pipeline"; "Woodside contradicts CSIRO report debunking key climate claims"; "Chemical from tyres linked to mass salmon deaths in US found in Australia for first time"; "More funding for recycling in budget: PM"; "These methane-eating bacteria could show us how to slow climate change"; "Energy bills are spiking after the Russian invasion. We should have doubled-down on renewables years ago"; "Extend life of key climate sensor that maps world's forests, Nasa told"; "I simply haven't got it in me to do it again': imagining a new heart for flood-stricken Lismore"; "It may not be cute, but here's why the humble yabby deserves your love"; "The making of a climate alarmist"; "Vested interests, inertia and a lack of political will slow renewable energy progress"; "Climate change is here today"; "Fatal Texas Wildfire Forces Evacuations and Destroys 50 Homes"; "Lights Out: Profitable Utility Company Shut Off Electricity to Homes Hundreds of Thousands of Times"; "A Climate Wake-Up Call for the Chemical Industry"; "2022 World Happiness Report"; "Decades of Lobbying Weakened Americans' Gas Mileage and Turbocharged Pain at the Pump"; "Healthcare Workers Call on Hospitals and Medical Institutions to Divest From Fossil Fuels"; "As EU leaders split on Russian energy sanctions, Commission moots 5-year plan"; "‘Betrayal': US approves just $1bn climate finance for developing countries in 2022"; "Some EU members turn back to coal to cut reliance on Russian gas"; "Carney, Kyte oversee carbon offset rules to address greenwashing concerns"; "A 10-Point Plan to Cut Oil Use"; "Hailstorms and climate change: What to expect"; "February 2022: Earth's 7th-warmest February on record"; "What a researcher learned from monitoring Atlanta's tree canopy"; "UK Research and Innovation report outlines key priorities for climate change adaptation"; "How to get the US to 100% electric vehicles by 2035"; "Why lithium-ion batteries are so important"; "Sadiq Khan: ‘Climate crisis is a racial justice issue' as black and Asian Londoners most affected"; "Hundreds of schools, organizations to host teach-in on climate and justice"; "Heatwaves at both of Earth's poles alarm climate scientists"; "NSW announces inquiry into flood crisis after criticism of state's response". Enjoy "Music for a Warming World".                                                         Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/climateconversations

On November 10, 1995, the government of Nigeria, at the urging of Royal Dutch Shell, executed nine environmental and indigenous rights activists known as the Ogoni 9. They had fought nonviolently to protect their ancestral home: a 400 square mile area of the Niger River Delta known as Ogoniland, which had been turned into hell on earth by decades of oil extraction. Who were the Ogoni 9, how did they fight back, and has there been any justice for these terrible crimes?Twitter: Link Patreon: LinkShirts and more: LinkNigeria: Ogoni 9 activists remembered 25 years on: LinkRemembering Nigeria's Ogoni 9, Murdered for Their Organizing Against Shell: LinkNigeria: Shell complicit in the arbitrary executions of Ogoni Nine as writ served in Dutch court: LinkDutch court will hear widows' case against Shell over deaths of Ogoni Nine: LinkThe Case Against Shell: The Hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa: LinkThe final Trial of Ken Saro-Wiwa: LinkFaces Of Africa Ken Saro-Wiwa: All For My People: LinkLong-term effects of oil spills in Bodo, Nigeria: LinkKen Saro-Wiwa / Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People: LinkCleaning up Nigerian oil pollution could take 30 years, cost billions – UN: LinkOgoni Bill of Rights: LinkKen Saro-Wiwa trial proceedings to resume without adequate legal defense: LinkTHE KEN SARO-WIWA TRIAL: A JUDICIAL TRAVESTY THAT MADE NIGERIA A COMMONWEALTH PARIAH: LinkIt took five tries to hang Saro-Wiwa: LinkKen-Saro Wiwa Killer Judge Becomes Acting Chief Judge Of Nigeria: Link

Jelly Cleaver - "Black Line," a 2021 single on Gearbox Records. On today's Song of the Day, South London-based artist/activist Jelly Cleaver uses her bluesy guitar rock to speak out on global warming. In a press release, she elaborates: “This song was especially inspired by the story of the Ogoni Nine and Shell oil corporation. Having poisoned the Niger Delta region with negligent oil spills, the Ogoni people who were indigenous there rose up and demanded Shell clean up the oil and compensate them. Shell worked with the military dictatorship government who raided villages killing 2,000 and displacing 80,000. Shell then bribed witnesses to provide false testimonies so that the leaders of the uprising were executed, who became known as the Ogoni nine.” “It was also inspired by the Dakota Access Pipeline Protests by the Standing Rock Sioux and the many times the fossil fuel industry has abused the world.” Read the full post on KEXP.org Support the show: https://www.kexp.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Board of Directors of Ken Saro-Wiwa Foundation (KSWF) says they will not accept the proposal by President Muhammadu Buhari to grant pardon to Saro-Wiwa and eight Ogoni activists executed by the late military dictator, Sani Abacha, in 1995.In a statement signed on behalf of the board of directors by Dr. Owen Wiwa, the KSWF asked President Buhari to grant their earlier request for the exoneration of Saro-Wiwa and eight others made by the family of the late activist. “Ken Saro-Wiwa and the other eight Ogonis were not criminals. They were innocent activists unjustly murdered for fighting for a just cause on behalf of their oppressed community.“The path to true peace in the region begins with justice. The cleaning up of the environment for which they campaigned and died for is a first good step. “The exoneration of Ken Saro-Wiwa and 8 other Ogoni activists, judicially murdered on November 10 1995 is another step towards peace. “The family of Ken Saro-Wiwa have made a request for the exoneration of Ken Saro-Wiwa to the President in the past and are still waiting for a response. We urge the President to again consider this request as a path to justice and peace.“The family and the Foundation have not asked any individual to ask for pardon or clemency for Ken Saro-Wiwa on our behalf, nor are we aware of any group of Ogonis making such a request,” the statement read

In this episode, Evelyn and Lara shed some light on the struggles, impact, and brutal execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa as he led the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). Royal Dutch Shell struck oil on Ogoni lands in Delta State in 1958 and this was the beginning of a string of environmental and human rights injustices against the people of Ogoni land till now. A community that was once rich in natural resources became destitute. Dejected by the rapid decline in their fortune, they protested against the pollution of their environment and demanded clean air, water, education, health facilities, etc. **Film recommendation - Oloibiri which can be found on Amazon Prime. It tells the story of villagers' lives and the impact of the discovery of crude oil in commercial quantities in the Niger Delta. Share and leave a comment wherever you listen to the podcast and follow us on Instagram @onceuponanaija for more content.

Taylor tells Josie about shipwreck survivor Harrison Okene and the sinking of the tugboat Jascon 4. Plus: a deep dive into Deep Dive Dubai, the world's deepest pool.

In the third installment of our Elements series, we've got two very different stories about the earth. Olivia tells the fascinating but devastating story of the exploitation of the Ogoni land and people for oil, including the execution of activists known as the Ogoni Nine. Elise goes a different route, recounting a series of butterfly-effect events that explain how a 19th-century volcano in Indonesia and the "year without a summer" led to some of the pioneering horror writing we still know today. We also discuss joining the dang Zoom, being tired, and Olivia seeing her name deep in the credits of the #1 movie on Netflix. Subscribe/follow/press the button to keep up with new episodes every Wednesday! You can also follow us @worldisburnin on Instagram and Twitter, and check out our website worldisburning.com for extended show notes including sources and photos. Cover art by Sonja Katanic. Music by Kaycie Satterfield. Thanks for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/worldisburning/message

On this week's episode of This is the Future Podcast, I relay the history of the struggle and (sadly) the death of Ken Saro Wiwa and his colleagues and draw a parallel between the response of the Abacha regime and the response of Buhari's government to the End SARS Protest.

To mark the 25th year of the deaths of the Ogoni Nine - nine men who were executed by a brutal military regime in Nigeria in response to their activism against oil extraction in Ogoniland - IHRB presents a series of conversations about the significance of their struggle and impact of their leader Ken Saro Wiwa.  In this episode - The View from the Ground - Salil Tripathi talks with Ledum Mitee, who was Saro-Wiwa's lawyer, detained with him, and mobilised international opinion for the Ogoni people, Noo Saro-Wiwa, Ken's daughter and distinguished writer based in London, and Austin Onuoha, a peace activist who works towards reconciliation in the Niger Delta. They examine what Ken Saro Wiwa meant to people in the Niger Delta and within the country. They focus on the struggle he built, the challenges he faced, the impact on his family, the family's view on the struggle, and how it impacted the movement for corporate accountability in the Niger Delta. 

To mark the 25th year of the deaths of the Ogoni Nine - nine men who were executed by a brutal military regime in Nigeria in response to their activism against oil extraction in Ogoniland - IHRB presents a series of conversations about the significance of their struggle and impact of their leader Ken Saro Wiwa.  In this episode - The View from a Corporate - Salil Tripathi talks with Richard Boele, now at KPMG in Sydney, who worked at Body Shop during the 1990s and lead a spirited corporate campaign for the Ogoni people prior to Ken's murder.

To mark the 25th year of the deaths of the Ogoni Nine - nine men who were executed by a brutal military regime in Nigeria in response to their activism against oil extraction in Ogoniland - IHRB presents a series of conversations about the significance of their struggle and impact of their leader Ken Saro Wiwa. In this episode - The View from Beyond - Salil Tripathi speaks with Nnimmo Bassey, Rafto Laureate, human rights defender, poet, and environmental activist; Bronwen Manby who co-authored The Price of Oil, Human Rights Watch's path-breaking research report on the violence in the Niger Delta; Paul Hoffman, who argued the Wiwa case before the US Supreme Court under the Alien Tort Statute; and Bennett Freeman, who was a senior US State Department official who brought together oil and mining companies, governments, and international human rights groups to prepare the Voluntary Principles for Security and Human Rights. They discuss how the Ogoni struggle in Nigeria shaped the modern business and human rights movement; the litigations that followed; the lack of political and corporate accountability in an oil-rich nation where the military was a major factor, and; the state of human rights.

Uganda presidential election campaigns kick-off +++ Tanzanian opposition presidential candidate, Tundu Lissu leaves for Belgium +++ Nigeria: Ogoni 9 activists remembered 25 years on

Le 10 novembre 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa, écrivain et militant écologiste nigérian, et huit compagnons d’infortune étaient exécutés par le régime du président général Sani Abacha à l’issue d’un procès controversé. Membre de la minorité ogoni, il avait alerté l’opinion mondiale sur les désastres écologiques liés à l’exploitation du pétrole dans le Delta du Niger. Le territoire Ogoni est l’une des trois régions les plus riches en pétrole en Afrique. Ken Saro-Wiwa n’a cessé de son vivant de dénoncer la mauvaise redistribution des recettes du pétrole. Vingt-cinq ans plus tard, dans « l’Ogoniland », les retombées visibles de la manne de l’or noir et du gaz sont peu nombreuses, tout comme les infrastructures et les équipements dans l’espace public. Les populations locales subissent les dommages collatéraux de l’exploitation énergétique : une pollution massive des nappes phréatiques, des champs agricoles et des zones de pêches, à laquelle s'ajoute un air vicié par les émanations de gaz. Résultat, en 2020, les conditions de vie sont toujours autant difficiles dans cette partie du Delta du Niger, alors qu’une campagne de dépollution a été officiellement relancée par Abuja en 2016. L’agence fédérale Hyprep, le Projet de nettoyage de la pollution liée à l’hydrocarbone, est née en 2012. Pour des problèmes de mauvaise gestion interne, rien ne s’est passé jusqu’en 2016. Mais l’Hyprep a démarré effectivement une campagne de dépollution depuis 2019. Elle avance cependant lentement.

Le 10 novembre 1995, Ken Saro-Wiwa, écrivain et militant écologiste nigérian et huit compagnons d’infortune étaient exécutés par le régime du président général Sani Abacha à l’issue d’un procès controversé. Membre de la minorité ogoni, il avait alerté l’opinion mondiale sur les désastres écologiques liés à l’exploitation du pétrole dans le Delta du Niger. Le territoire Ogoni est l’une des trois régions les plus riches en pétrole en Afrique. Ken Saro Wiwa n’a cessé de son vivant de dénoncer la mauvaise redistribution des recettes du pétrole. Vingt-cinq ans plus tard, plusieurs procès devaient avoir lieu en Europe, confrontant Shell, la multinationale anglo-néerlandaise, à des individualités et des collectifs issus de la communauté ogoni. La pandémie de coronavirus a reporté l’ouverture et la poursuite des débats de plusieurs audiences. Notre correspondant au Nigeria s’est rendu dans le Delta du Niger pour rencontrer deux familles en procès contre Shell. La famille Eawo et la famille Gbai sont des citoyens ordinaires et vivent un difficile combat judiciaire face à la multinationale.

Le 10 novembre 1995, l’écrivain et militant écologiste nigérian Ken Saro-Wiwa et huit compagnons d'infortune étaient exécutés par le régime du président général Sani Abacha à l’issue d’un procès controversé. Membre de la minorité Ogoni, il avait alerté l’opinion mondiale sur les désastres écologiques liés à l’exploitation du pétrole dans le delta du Niger. Vingt-cinq ans plus tard, Ken Saro-Wiwa a laissé derrière lui des héritiers.  Dans « l'Ogoniland », la manne de l'or noir et du gaz a peu de retombées visibles. Les infrastructures et les équipements sont rares dans l'espace public. Les populations locales subissent les dommages collatéraux de l'exploitation énergétique : une pollution massive des nappes phréatiques, des champs agricoles et des zones de pêche, à laquelle s'ajoute un air vicié par les émanations de gaz. En 2020, les conditions de vie sont toujours autant difficiles dans cette partie du delta du Niger, alors qu'une campagne de dépollution a été officiellement lancée par Abuja en 2016. Ken Saro-Wiwa n'a cessé de son vivant de dénoncer la mauvaise redistribution des recettes du pétrole. Le Mosop, le mouvement qu'il a créé, existe toujours malgré la féroce répression qu'il a subie dans les années 90. Et surtout malgré l'exode massif de milliers militants dans les pays voisins du Nigeria, en Europe et en Amérique. Le MOSOP est très implanté dans les six royaumes Ogoni dans le pourtour de Port Harcourt. ► À lire aussi : Ken Saro-Wiwa, pionnier de l’écologie politique en Afrique Le crâne rasé de près, tunique à manche courte à damier jaune et orange, Bobjay Arwanen est le leader de l'antenne du MOSOP de Bera, une petite commune au cœur de Gokana, un des six royaumes Ogonis : « Chaque jour et chaque nuit, nous déplorons que notre air a été pollué, notre eau a été polluée, notre sol a été souillée, et même ce sol est condamné. Même si l'armée venait maintenant, je m'exprimerai sur le même ton. Je n'ai pas peur des soldats. Ils tirent, ils n'ont pas pu me tuer. J'ai passé quatre mois de ma vie à me cacher dans une forêt. Les soldats m'ont cherché jusqu'à ce qu'ils s'épuisent, ils ne m'ont jamais rattrapé. » En face de lui, assis trois par trois sur les bancs de la petite classe d'une école primaire de Bera, près de 45 adultes l'écoutent attentivement. Près de trente ans que le « camarade Bobjay », comme on l'appelle dans sa communauté, est un membre actif du MOSOP. Près de 30 ans que ce paysan harangue les foules dans les villages de la communauté ogoni.  « Depuis que Ken Saro-Wiwa est venu diriger le mouvement, je l'ai suivi. Je l'ai suivi jusqu'à aujourd'hui. Nous allions de village en village, nous avons commencé à crier, nous avons interpellé notre peuple dans notre langue. “S'il vous plaît dou, dou“ (appel sonore en langue gokana), quand vous les appelez ainsi, les habitants d'ici sortent immédiatement. Quand je dis “dou”, “dou”, je dis “viens, viens, sors“, et ils viennent en masse. J'ai essayé au maximum d'utiliser ma langue gokana pour bien me faire comprendre. Du moment où vous parlez aux gens d'ici dans leur langue maternelle, c'est comme si vous leur injectiez une piqure, la réaction est instantanée. » Au milieu des années 90, la répression contre les militants du Mosop est telle que Bobjay Arwanen fui le Nigeria. Il se retrouve au Bénin. Sans rien. Et surtout sans statut de réfugié. Il survit quelques années dans un camp informel. Puis l'appel du pays est trop fort, il est rentré à Bera  : « Je continuerai à me battre jusqu'à la dernière seconde de ma vie, jusqu'à ce que nous atteignions notre objectif. Nous voulons avoir une gouvernance saine, nous voulons contrôler nos ressources, nous voulons être souverain comme n'importe quel autre peuple. Nous sommes des êtres humains comme les autres. » Dans cette lutte pour les droits du peuple Ogoni, Bobjay a perdu son épouse, son fils ainsi que plusieurs frères. Il est convaincu que leur esprit l'accompagne et le guide au quotidien.

Before I filed for divorce - in fact, before I even walked away from my marriage - I had never given a moment's thought to sex (or lack of it) during a divorce. I also did not know that the legal laws for sexing while divorcing varied from State to State. In my State, Maryland, for example, it is illegal to have sex with someone who is not your spouse, until your divorce is final. It does not matter if you are legally separated.It was only when I separated from The Boy that I started receiving questions about my sex life. People wanted to know what who I was doing and how I was coping [without sex] and when last I had sex, etc. And then it dawned on me that I had never thought about the quality of my sex life while I was divorcing. But then again, the quality of my sex life while I was married was not memorable either.In this week's episode, I have our very own Berry Dakara! Berry Dakara is currently going through divorce, and recently, she mentioned publicly on her Instagram that she had not had sex in a while. So, I thought to myself, well, why stop there? Let's go on the podcast and have an even more intimate conversation about sex. So, here we are.Berry Dakara is a single-mother of one very beautiful daughter, Coco. She has worn a few hats as a Content Creator, starting with her first blog, the Aje-Butter's Guide to NYSC, and then her personal blog also named Berry Dakara. She has a Youtube channel that she hopes to resurrect one day, but her focus right now is on her podcast - Mommy Oyoyo - which she started in 2019 as a platform to talk about anything and everything motherhood from the modern African woman's perspective. Berry is Nigerian (half Ogoni-half Igbo) and has lived in the US for over 20 years. She enjoys spending time with her family, friends, but also treasures time alone to herself. Berry is a chronic oversharer (just check her Instagram posts) but does not plan to promote this episode on Facebook so her daddy will not scold her. Yes, of course, she's a punk. You can connect with Berry Dakara on Twitter, and you can connect with the Mommy Oyoyo Podcast on Instagram too.BEFORE YOU GO, PLEASE RATE AND LEAVE A WRITTEN REVIEW ON APPLE PODCASTS. THANK YOU!Let's connect:I Am African on InstagramI Am African on TwitterI Am African on FacebookVera Ezimora on InstagramVera Ezimora on TwitterVera Ezimora on FacebookSubscribe to my monthly emailsWeb: www.verastic.comEmail: iamafrican@verastic.com

Hours after his arrest, the most wanted Rivers State criminal and notorious killer, Honest Digbara, aka Boboski is dead. He died following multiple gunshot injuries and machete wounds sustained during the crossfire that led to his arrest this morning.The Commissioner of Police, Rivers State Command, CP Joseph Mukan, announced that Boboski was arrested early hours of Saturday in a sting operation assisted by vigilante in the Ogoni neighborhoodThe police boss said the arrest of the criminal followed credible information by members of the public. To Mukan, Boboski and his gang members were responsible for the kidnapping and killing of one Barrister Emelogu after collecting ransom.He is also responsible for the killing of a Divisional Crime Officer Afam Division, SP Moses Egbede, as well as the killing of a soldier and personnel of Civil Defence at Gio pipeline in Ogoni last year, killing of two Policemen at a Federal Highway at Botem among others,” he said.

L'archive 27 - l'affaire Bygmalion L'archive explique comment les comptes de campagne du candidat à sa réélection Nicolas Sarkozy furent truqués afin de faire payer les dépenses par l'UMP. Une affaire emblématique de malversations. -- N'hésitez pas à partager avec votre entourage par e-mail, WhatsApp et réseaux sociaux les épisodes qui vous intéressent afin de faire vivre la chaîne -- Cette archive parle du lanceur d'alerte avant l'heure Ken Saro-Wiwa, qui dénonçait la main mise par Shell sur le pétrole Nigerian. L'archive parle de son exécution par pendaison et de l'aide logistique et financière apportée par Shell, dans l'effort de répression du peuple Ogoni (que Saro-Wiwa reprsentait) au gouvernement militaire nigérian des années 90. La chaine YVB podcast a pour émission principale "Archives par YVB" qui consiste à vous résumer une affaire de corruption dans un format d'environ 5 minutes. J'utilise la méthode de l'archivage pour parler d'affaires, qui concernent toutes l'intérêt général, le plus simplement possible. Je sélectionne des sujets qui me semblent capitaux à la bonne comprehension du fonctionnement de notre société. Cette chaine est indépendante et ouverte à toutes les propositions de partenariats en cohérence avec son fond et sa forme. ABONNEZ-VOUS - SOUTENEZ - PARTAGEZ De quoi parle la chaîne ? De corruption - anticorruption - intérêt général - monopoles - cartels - scandales politiques - géopolitique - lanceurs d'alerte - d'histoire moderne - conflit d'interet Cette chaine est indépendante et ouverte à toutes les propositions en cohérence avec son fond et sa forme. ABONNEZ-VOUS : Les liens: - Twitter: @YVBpodcast - Find me on Apple Podcasts - Find me on Google Podcasts - Soundcloud: @yvbpodcast ------------ Music by: Auteur: CloudKicker Titre: Night Album: Unending Year:2019 Visit: http://cloudkicker.bandcamp.com https://www.auboutdufil.com/index.php?license=CC-BY https://www.auboutdufil.com/get.php?web=https://archive.org/download/cloudkickernight/Cloudkicker_Night.mp3

Archive 26 - Shell, le gouvernement Nigerian et les 9 pendus (la répression des Ogonis) -- N'hésitez pas à partager avec votre entourage par e-mail, WhatsApp et réseaux sociaux les épisodes qui vous intéressent afin de faire vivre la chaîne -- Cette archive parle du lanceur d'alerte avant l'heure Ken Saro-Wiwa, qui dénonçait la main mise par Shell sur le pétrole Nigerian. L'archive parle de son exécution par pendaison et de l'aide logistique et financière apportée par Shell, dans l'effort de répression du peuple Ogoni (que Saro-Wiwa reprsentait) au gouvernement militaire nigérian des années 90. La chaine YVB podcast a pour émission principale "Archives par YVB" qui consiste à vous résumer une affaire de corruption dans un format d'environ 5 minutes. J'utilise la méthode de l'archivage pour parler d'affaires, qui concernent toutes l'intérêt général, le plus simplement possible. Je sélectionne des sujets qui me semblent capitaux à la bonne comprehension du fonctionnement de notre société. Cette chaine est indépendante et ouverte à toutes les propositions de partenariats en cohérence avec son fond et sa forme. ABONNEZ-VOUS - SOUTENEZ - PARTAGEZ De quoi parle la chaîne ? De corruption - anticorruption - intérêt général - monopoles - cartels - scandales politiques - géopolitique - lanceurs d'alerte - d'histoire moderne - conflit d'interet Cette chaine est indépendante et ouverte à toutes les propositions en cohérence avec son fond et sa forme. ABONNEZ-VOUS : Les liens: - Twitter: @YVBpodcast - Find me on Apple Podcasts - Find me on Google Podcasts - Soundcloud: @yvbpodcast ------------ Music by: Auteur: CloudKicker Titre: Night Album: Unending Year:2019 Visit: http://cloudkicker.bandcamp.com https://www.auboutdufil.com/index.php?license=CC-BY https://www.auboutdufil.com/get.php?web=https://archive.org/download/cloudkickernight/Cloudkicker_Night.mp3

Il 10 Novembre 1995 a Port Harcourt, in Nigeria, vengono impiccati 9 attivisti del MOSOP , il Movimento per la Sopravvivenza del Popolo Ogoni. Il primo ad essere impiccato è un poeta, oltre che uno dei leader del MOSOP. Prima di venire impiccato dice: “Signore, prendi la mia anima, ma la lotta continua”. Era uno dei maggiori intellettuali nigeriani. Si chiamava Ken Saro Wiwa. Insieme a lui vengono impiccati Saturday Dobee, Nordu Eawo, Daniel Gbooko, Paul Levera, Felix Nuate, Baribor Bera, Barinem Kiobel e John Kpuine. Sono gli Ogoni Nine. Ken Saro Wiwa era già stato incarcerato nel 1992 per diversi mesi, su pressione del governo militare nigeriano. Dopo essere stato liberato, organizza con il MOSOP una manifestazione nel Gennaio 1993: vi partecipano circa 300,000 persone, più della metà della popolazione del popolo Ogoni; marciano attraverso quattro villaggi, attirando l'attenzione internazionale su questa popolazione e su quanto stanno richiedendo. Poco dopo il governo nigeriano decide di occupare militarmente la regione. Il 21 Maggio dell'anno successivo, il 1994, quattro capi Ogoni che si erano allontanati dal MOSOP e appartenevano all'ala più conservatrice, vengono brutalmente assassinati. Nonostante Ken Saro Wiwa non sia stato sul luogo del delitto nei giorni in cui i quattro vengono assassinati, viene arrestato con l'accusa di istigazione all'omicidio. Resta in carcere più di un anno, in quella cella scrive una delle sue poesie più famose, “La vera prigione”: Ken Saro Wiwa, La vera prigioneNon è il tetto che perde non sono nemmeno le zanzare che ronzano nell'umida, misera cella. Non è il rumore metallico della chiave mentre il secondino ti chiude dentro. Non sono le meschine razioni insufficienti per uomo o besta neanche il nulla del giorno che sprofonda nel vuoto della notte. Non è. Non è. Non è. Sono le bugie che ti hanno martellato le orecchie per un'intera generazione. È il poliziotto che corre all'impazzata in un raptus omicida mentre esegue a sangue freddo ordini sanguinari in cambio di un misero pasto al giorno, il magistrato che scrive sul suo libro la punizione, lei lo sa, è ingiusta. La decrepitezza morale l'inettitudine mentale che concede alla dittatura una falsa legittimazione la vigliaccheria travestita da obbedienza in agguato nelle nostre anime denigrate. È la paura di calzoni inumiditi, non osiamo eliminare la nostra urina. È questo. È questo. È questo amico mio, è questo che trasforma il nostro mondo libero in una cupa prigione. Nel 1990, Saro-Wiwa inizia a dedicare la maggior parte del suo tempo ai diritti umani e alle cause ambientali, in particolare a Ogoniland. Nel Delta del Niger c'è il petrolio, e molte compagnie petrolifere europee e statunitensi lo estraggono causando diversi disastri ambientali e costringono militarmente il Popolo Ogoni, che da sempre abitava quel territorio, a emigrare. È uno dei fondatori del Movimento per la sopravvivenza del popolo Ogoni (MOSOP), che sosteneva i diritti del popolo Ogoni, che chiedeva una maggiore autonomia, la riparazione dei danni ambientali alle terre Ogoni e una percentuale sui proventi dati dall'estrazione del petrolio. In particolare, il nemico del MOSOP è la Dutch Royal Shell, nel Delta del Niger dal 1958. Fronte Unico, L'ultimo respiro fa da testamentoSe un ribelle spento passa il testimone, siamo pronti a prenderlo?

My conversation with Akin Oyebode is now up. Akin has been the model public servant in most young business and progressive circles that I am aware of in the last decade or more. He’s also had a previous successful career in the financial industry and has been brilliantly recalibrating to what I think our expectations should be about the public sector. We delve into his current job, and how that shapes his outlook on public service. We also talked about several important reforms he wants to help jumpstart in Ekiti State. Akin is a practising pragmatist with the values of a progressive idealist. You can listen or download, for much more interesting insights (you can also listen on Stitcher here)TranscriptTobi: This is Ideas Untrapped, and I am here with Akin Oyebode. Akin is an economist and currently, he is the special adviser to the Ekiti State Government on investment, trade and innovation. Welcome Akin.Akin: Thank you very much. Thank you for having me.Tobi: You came from the private sector, what are the cultural differences between public service and the private sector? There was this analogy I got from Arnold Kling where he said: public institutions usually have a culture of 'no', where they are big enough and it's very easy to say no and changes only happen at the margins, unlike private institutions or startups where they start from 'yes' and they can really really drive change fast. What has your experience been in that regard?Akin: I think you have to understand that (some) public service and private sector have two fairly distinct outcomes and Taleb's skin in the game theory, for me, is what holds very strongly here. In the private sector, you could argue that as an employee sometimes you're a shareholder, sometimes your reward is directly tied to the performance of the firm. So in a way you have skin in the game. You have some skin in the game. Founders of businesses which tend obviously more along the startup space, those guys have full skin in the game. Their lives are almost tied... they're like Siamese twins to the company. So if you look at the founders of, say, PayStack or Flutterwave; these guys have left the comfort of their day jobs to go and set up businesses. They're taking the biggest bets of their lives on these businesses. It's like you going to a surgeon, you're going to choose the best surgeon possible because if he makes a mistake, you're dead. Public service tends to be fairly different in the sense that, first: the reward structure is more annuity-based. So you are rewarded for not making mistakes. The fewer mistakes you make the better. So, even if you don't change anything, as long as you've not significantly damaged anything - you haven't stolen money - you're likely to have a 30-40-year career. So the incentives are not aligned towards innovation, that's the first thing. And that tends to make people a lot more cautious. Also because they're not significantly affected by the outcomes, that also creates a moral concern for me.If you think about healthcare, if you think about education, you could argue that my children will go to fairly decent schools regardless of the quality of education overall in the country. And so because of those misalignments in incentives and outcomes, you tend to find that people will play it safe because they themselves are not significantly invested in those outcomes. If you take my current role, I've gone to Ekiti State to support...Clears throatAkin: The development work going on there, but you can argue that "look, many of the things that I will be involved in, I might not necessarily be the beneficiary or it might not impact me directly." So if you sign off on a firm building a rice mill in a certain community, you don't live in that community, you don't deal with the environmental challenges that come with that decision, so you are not as invested in the outcomes as the people who live in those communities. But I think some of the things that can change is, for example, aligning incentives properly, rewarding people for taking risk (some level of risk). There are areas where I think that risk-taking is not important - things that have to do with lives, things like aviation. I will not advocate for cutting-edge technology or improvements in aviation if we cannot be sure, 100 percent, that it improves the safety outcomes. Things like healthcare - approving drugs, for example. You want to test and test and test and be sure there are no adverse effects. The food and drugs department, for example - NAFDAC - is not the place where people will have lots of crazy ideas. But improving transport, improving tourism, improving production; I think government has to be a lot more, I'll say, open to fresh ideas. And I think it's happening across the country in pockets where you're now starting to see younger people, people with private sector experience going into government and hopefully, we're a critical mass and we're able to influence significant changes in governance.But I agree, 100 percent, with that philosophy that improvement in government will not be radical for the foreseeable future and it tends to happen at the margins because it's also less disruptive...Tobi: Yeah.Akin: It's easy for the mainstream public service to say "hey, this is how we do things." It's something that you hear in government and I've worked for two governments now so it's not an Ekiti problem. I'll ask someone: why do we do this this way? Why do we charge these 5 levies? And the person says "oh, but this is how it was always charged" and then when you go and you dig deeper, you find that it was just one man who just sat down one day and said "oh, charge this amount as a levy for trying to get a C of O. It's not because there was some science to it, it's not because it was researched or evidence-based, it was just the guy's belief at the time. And so it tells you that it's almost two things: on one side, one person can actually make a significant change; but when that person does, to unwind some of the negative outcomes of those kinds of changes take forever to happen. So you almost must be in the stubborn minority. You must be that guy who feels like "I can make things happen" and then start to build a critical mass of those people and eventually I think we'll see government become a bit more innovative. But it's not going to be NASA...Tobi: [Laughs]Akin: It's not going to be Google, it's still government but you'll see some changes happen.Tobi: It's interesting you mentioned incentives. Do you think that public servants are properly rewarded, in terms of pay?Akin: You know that's a question where I have skin in the game.LaughsAkin: I honestly don't feel that...there are two issues here. One is that I don't think public servants are well-paid, but the second issues that I also don't think that the public service is productive enough today to ask for significant...Tobi: Raise Akin: Raise in salaries. I'll tell you point-blank as a public servant today, my net pay will be about for hundred thousand naira a month and I'm a fairly senior, you might say, public servant. At four hundred thousand naira a month, that's effectively five million naira a year, you're not going to attract significant talent into the place unless they are people that, one: have earned income previously and have savings they can depend on or in some cases, they are people where people both partners earn, so where maybe you're lucky to have a wife who significantly outearns you and can ensure that the quality of life doesn't diminish, significantly, by joining government. Or if you think you have, maybe, bigger ambitions in public service that you're happy to take a pay cut to go and work in government. But it’s very difficult to attract people to serve government and one of the ways that national and sub-national government are now trying to, sort of, workaround that is to get development finance institutions or development partners to offset some of the salary differences. But to what extent can you do that, for how many people, how scalable is it? And then, where does the conflict of interest come in, where some people might say "why should a foreign agency pay the salaries of people working in public service?" But today, that's the only way you can do it unless the salary structure starts to change. But to even show that we need to earn more, I believe that we need to be a lot more productive, both at the national and sub-national government. One person can actually make a significant change; but when that person does, to unwind some of the negative outcomes of those kinds of changes take forever to happen. -AOTobi: Yeah, I think you're talking about talent, so the two issues sort of tie together in a way. That is, talent and the knowledge problem, and incentives in the public sector. Now if you talk about safety industries, maybe NAFDAC, aviation and all that - if I understand you correctly, you advocated for some kind of precautionary principle.Akin: Absolutely.Tobi: But, what about the knowledge problem? Okay, let's take NAFDAC. We know that the knowledge about drug discovery relies with the private sector.Akin: Absolutely.Tobi: Now, if you don't have enough talent, at say, NAFDAC, how then can they make the right decisions even about regulating drugs. So how should the government try to solve that talent challenge?Akin: I think Singapore and China are two good examples, where you have to take a 20-30-year view of building a pipeline and you have to send people to the best institutions possible, you have to give them a chance to cut their teeth in the private sector, understand how private enterprise works, what drives innovation (etc) and then bring those people back into public service. It has to be very deliberate. I used to work in banking and I used to joke with friends that every time I sat with a CBN examiner, I said to myself that I understand the financial products a lot better than you do and so how are you even going to regulate me properly? And those are the issues that you face in regulatory agencies today where the knowledge is limited not because of any malicious intent, but it's really just because the people don't know better. So I think that first, Nigeria must be very deliberate about how do we send people to acquire knowledge? How do we help them gain experience and how do we ensure that they come back and feed all of those things into public service? We used to do it in the past, we had a lot of talent development programs and I remember...in fact I remember I was reading a tweet by...I think it was Tolu Ogunlesi who was tweeting something about our first engineering PhD. The guy who went to MIT, I forget his name now, who came back to Nigeria and the government just didn't know what to do with him and the guy ended up going to work for Shell, I think, or something. That guy in China will be sitting at a senior level, a senior decision-making level within 20 years of graduating from that PhD program. You know the thing about what the Chinese did - not only did they encourage people to go to the west to learn, when they came back they also put them in critical functions. Whether it was a research function, whether it was the PBOC (The People's Bank of China), those guys were now the guys today...some of those guys are the guys taking decisions for the country. Singapore, for example, will say to you: you're a great talent, go and study elsewhere, go and do this, but when you come back we're going to pay you top dollar because you're the best of the best. I think that's where we have to get to - a situation where we are taking our top talent, we're exposing them to private-sector institutions both locally and internationally. But there's a clear plan about how to feed them back into the public service. I think that's the part we've missed out, where, now, the public service is seen as a place to fit our cousins who don't have jobs. Honestly, I can openly tell you this that in my state, for example, we're doing a recruitment exercise for teachers and the government has been very clear that if you don't make a certain mark you can't qualify. But people in my community have come to me to say "oh, but you should be able to help this guy now, he scored 30. Let's say the pass mark is 40, you know... it's not too far off." And I'm like, but these are the guys want to... you want these guys...Tobi: To educate your kids.Akin: To educate your kids. Don't you understand that if I hire a substandard teacher, your kids are going to get substandard education and you are caught in a poverty trap? So you who should have more skin in the game (you) are actually the one coming to me to say come and break the rules for us. It's not in your interest and I think we have to understand that public service is for the best people. Our best guys must go into public service. It's like the universities; back in the day, if you made a first [class] or you made a very good 2:1, you were locked in to go back into the academia. Today, we're almost saying that "oh, if you can't get into Shell, then come and teach engineering" whereas thirty years ago, Shell and the engineering faculty were competing for talent. So I think that we have to be deliberate about that. Our best people must be shown a path into public service.Tobi: Okay. So now let's talk about you on the job. Someone like me writing about public policy can say "oh, you have to do XYZ" but I mean someone like you on the job has to deal with practical issues. So (now) which would a public servant prioritise between, say, fixing fundamental issues and binding constraints? I'll give you an example - you used to write a blog back in the day "t'oluwa ni ile", I don't know why you stopped...Akin: That was Feyi. That was Feyi's blog I think I only guest-posted for him.Tobi: Oh, interesting... So now, someone like me can say that "oh, for us to have some kind of change in that area you have to repeal the land use act". Whereas in Ekiti State, it could be a binding constraint that can be removed by simply suspending aspects of it to achieve what you want to do without really touching the law. So how does it work, really?Our best people must be shown a path into public service. - AOAkin: I think land administration, for me, is a great way to discuss this problem. I think sometimes... in fact let's not use [the] Land Use Act. Let's use taxes. Tobi: Yeah.Akin: We always say States can't compete because corporate taxes are the exclusive preserve of the Federal Government but I think that States can compete even on payroll taxes. So if I say today that we want to be a knowledge destination as Ekiti - as Ekiti State we should be able to say that if you come to work in the knowledge economy whether as lecturer, as a researcher, as an innovator, whatever it is; that you should only pay 2.5 percent payroll taxes, as against, maybe, 28 percent which is where your salary band sits. It automatically means that if you leave Lagos today and you move to Ekiti, you're 20 percent up and that's an incentive to drive people there. And I think that's something that States can do, and say "look, you know what? We want to own the automobile sector, if you come and set up shop here, you're going to pay 5 percent taxes regardless of your income band." And so people then say: hey guys, you know what? If we move this factory to Ekiti, you might not have ShopRite there today, you might not have iMax but you're earning 15 percent more. Yes or no?Tobi: Yeah.Akin: That takes you... that starts to give people a reason to move outside of Lagos or Port-Harcourt or wherever. So I think that there are things that the sub-nationals can do to compete a lot better. But to your point around what do you deal with? You deal with the fundamentals. I always say that as a government or as a public servant, you must ensure that you are there to support generational change. And, again, I always go back to places like China. If you think of a guy like Zhao who was Premier, he's been airbrushed out of Chinese history today but a lot of the reforms that he started are the reforms that China still depend on thirty years later for growth. Even though he died... you could say he died unheralded etc, the point is that if you look at China critically, anything that you say Deng Xiaoping did, they did it together, for the most part. But you must be strong in your conviction that you're doing what is right and you're doing what is right for the long term. So, but, it comes at a cost. And I'll give you a good example. In my principal's first term in office, he instituted an assessment of teachers that was deemed unpopular and politically naive and ask I people: was it the right thing to do to ensure that you had the best quality teachers in place? It's never a bad policy. You can't say "oh, well, you guys did something unpopular, teachers won't vote for you." You've got to ask yourself: you will not be in government forever, how do you ensure that you build things that can outlive you, that can outlast you? It's very important and it's always a...it's a problem, it's a dilemma because you also can say "if you don't hold political power, then how do you influence people?" And I think for me, it's in playing on the margins and saying "look, how far can I push the envelope?" And "is this thing an extensional issue?" I consider education an existential issue. And so, I would say that "look, today, States should not be devoting less than, at least, 15 percent of the budget, minimum, to education." You know 26 percent might be impractical today because you also have issues with infrastructure, security etc. But I will say, "look, no matter what, at least 15 percent of your budget should go towards education regardless of what happens" and you must say "look, what are the fundamental problems I'm solving?" Quality of the curriculum, quality of teachers, learning environment, what can I do to improve pedagogy? (etc) Those are existential problems. Land use, for example, is that an existential problem? In my opinion, no.I can still work around that today. There are still things that within the Governor's powers he can do to improve land rights in the state. I can digitise my land registry. I can make it easier to get a certificate of occupancy. I can make it easier to transfer title. Those are things that as a state government you can do. For us, for example, with things like our Doing Business reforms, some [one] of the things that we are going to recommend is: can there be multiple authorities to sign some of these certificates, these documents or must it be solely vested in the governor? Those are conversations that you can have at [the] sub-national level. So I won't say that - look, repealing the land use act today, is it the easiest thing to do? No. But there are other things that you can do, to your point, to work around some of the challenges that you face there. So, yes, there are some fundamental problems that you have to deal with, to answer you, and those must be existential ones because you have limited gunpowder in government. You can't waste that gunpowder on something that is not supercritical. So you've got to find, what are the one or two existential issues? On these issues, I'm ready to put my political legacy on the line. On the rest of the issues, we'll work around them (as) on a case-by-case basis.Tobi: Okay, so let's talk about investments. Which obviously you need to make some of these things happen. And we know that even the country as a whole faces some serious balance of payment crisis. So, now, what (again) in your own experience and relying on best practices, what are the cheapest source of driving Investments really really fast? Some people talk about the diaspora, for example - I think currently the World Bank says remittances is about $22billion even though the government disputes that...LaughsI always say that as a government or as a public servant, you must ensure that you are there to support generational change. - AOTobi: But you'll also see that a lot of those remittances go to welfare for families, for individual households. So how much of an investment source can they really be? What is the template, what is the practice really, of really really driving investment?Akin: Honestly my personal view, is that diaspora flows for our economy help to stimulate consumption. I think to your point, it's a social welfare program. People are trying to supplement low-income relatives, primarily.Anecdotal information suggests that maybe 10-15 percent of those flows actually go into investments, most of that also into real estate...primarily, real estate investments. I think that where we sometimes need to look at better are domestic investment opportunities. And I think that subnational sometimes focus a lot more on foreign investments, sometimes to the detriment of existing capital locked in the country. There's a lot of capital locked here that I think we can unlock. I mean, one of the things that people talk about, for example, is "how do we divert pension funds into infrastructure projects?" I always say that it's a very tricky conversation to have because a lot of those pension funds are already invested in things like treasury bills...Tobi: Yeah.Akin: Which is even going to the government, but, for me, it's not even how do you divert Pension Funds into government-driven investments? It's how do you use government to guarantee some private investments? So, a good example for me is, instead of saying I want to raise a bond as Ekiti State Government to build a power plant, why can't I have a private power plant, go and raise that capital from the capital market knowing that Ekiti State provides a backstop guarantee of some sort that, at the very least, you're going to earn a minimum revenue...so having a minimum revenue guarantee of some sort that allows that deal to become bankable.So let's say Tobi & Co. goes to build a road and knows that I can toll that road because the regulatory environment allows me to do that in Ekiti. And the state government then says "well, if you don't make your two million naira a day on the road, I'm happy to supplement that to ensure that that minimum revenue is achieved. Those are the ways for us to make projects more bankable. You're not really lending to the government, you're lending to private enterprises who have a backstop guarantee of some sort from the government. Sovereign risk is a big deal, so I'm keen to say let's deal with people who are already doing business in Nigeria. People who are already doing business here are important... are more important than, I'll say, getting fresh investors from outside the country. Because these are guys who already banked... they back Nigeria. They're like, okay, we're happy to do business here, we understand the country risk, we understand the business environment. It's a lot easier to get those guys through the line. It's a lot easier to say to a Promasidor, for example, come and take over our diary farm in Ikun than to say to someone who has never done business in Nigeria: come and do business in Ekiti. It's a lot easier to talk to a Dangote, a Stallion to say, come and set up rice mills in Ekiti than someone who has never done business in Nigeria. So I think you have to get a fair mix of both and also to ensure that when you bring in investors, you have the aftercare service that ensures that the guys get exactly what they want out of the state [be]cause there is herd mentality around investment. Capital flows to where returns are optimised.Tobi: Yeah.Akin: And the best way to demonstrate optimisation of returns is the capital that has already come in here - what has it gotten? Which is why I always say to people that regardless of whatever issues you say MTN has in Nigeria, MTN is a good example of optimising capital and it brought... if you see the people who came on the coattails of MTN, you know, Mr Price, ShopRite, all these guys, they came to Nigeria...even if it's the fear of missing out that brings you in, the people will come. It's like a restaurant, it doesn't serve the best food but if I hire 50 people to stand outside pretending they are on a queue, you're more likely to stop there to eat because you must think there's something good about this food that is driving these long queues. So restaurants have been known to artificially increase the size of the queues just to get people like you and I to come and join, and when you get in there, you find out that the food is not great you're already... you're sucked in anyway. So I think for me, first is, optimise domestic capital flows. There's a lot of capital that sits in this country today or even sits outside the country owned by Nigerians that we have to bring back. It's only when domestic flows invest in the productive sector in the country that you start to find that foreign capital will come in. We have to use the domestic capital to demonstrate the viability of investing in Nigeria. So I always say that we'll mix both. We'll go offshore looking for capital but we will also call local capital in. And part of what we have been doing in Ekiti is even meeting with people who currently do business in Nigeria to say to them "this is a great place for you to do business and this is why?"We must ensure price stability" which then ensures that people can save a lot more of their income… - AOTobi: Okay. Okay. So my bit of pushback against that is that - okay, now, say you're trying to industrialize, and you favour domestic investment, what about technology and knowledge transfer?Akin: That's a great question, honestly. You know, the truth is: it's not going to be one or the other. And I think that it's finding the balance. Because knowledge transfer is not geography-based, right? There is nothing that says that the knowledge does not exist in businesses today in the country. I mean, when I talk to some of the BPO players (the guys who run Business Processing Outsourcing businesses in Nigeria), some of the guys are doing transformative work that I won't have believed existed in this country. These are things that I think happen in Vietnam, in Bangladesh, in Mauritius, but it actually exists in Nigeria. The biggest constraints they have: quality broadband; talent. Now, those are constraints that we can take away. If as a state we say to Main One, pay a hundred and thirty-five naira per metre to lay fibre to Ekiti, it becomes a lot cheaper to get the infrastructure to a place like Ekiti. If we say we are happy to offset the cost of training people as long as you, as the BPO company, agrees that you take on these people when they complete the program satisfactorily, that's a cost that we take away for you. Everybody is happy, The State is happy, the people are unemployed; Nigeria is attracting a lot more investment in that space. I think that there are pockets of excellence where you can say (look) knowledge transfer is even easier to achieve with local capital. So there's nothing that says that (no) because the capital is local you can't import the knowledge, there's nothing that says you cannot import the technology but I'm just saying that you have to recognise that if you do not have local skin in the game...Dangote refinery is a good example, will you tell me that that project doesn't come with knowledge or technology transfer? It does. But whose capital is it?Tobi: It's his.Akin: It's local capital.Tobi: Yeah.Akin: And that's the thing for me that if your local capital is not taking risk in your country, it's very difficult to attract foreign capital. That holds true for most places. If you take a country like - again, I'm sorry I always go back to China. But if you take a place like China, you find that a lot of the capital that was unlocked was domestic capital. Look at South Africa - one of the reasons why the South African government or [the] South African economy can sustain systemic shocks is that there is already significant domestic capital mobilized. That any systemic shocks you find can be buffered by local capital and that's where, for me, if you ask me and I know we've not gotten into a macro conversation.Tobi: Yeah.Akin: But if you ask me, the Central Bank's single objective today, has to be price stability. Because, what you find is that people are not able to save, household savings is non-existent.Tobi: Wiped off.Akin: Is wiped off. Because people are spending 65-70 percent of their incomes on food. So when you spend 95 percent of your income on existential issues: food, shelter, clothing; there's nothing to save. If you cannot mobilize domestic savings, then where is the shocks [buffer] against systemic issues with foreign investment? Because whether you like it or not your ability to attract foreign investment is not dependent on you, there are external shocks that affect that, right?Tobi: Yeah. Akin: If The Fed raises rates by a hundred basis points it affects how much capital comes into Nigeria.Tobi: Yeah.Akin: So we must be saying, "look, we must ensure price stability" which then ensures that people can save a lot more of their income and then that, at least, it helps to stimulate a domestic investment environment.Tobi: From what you're saying, it seems there is a lot of...and I've been seeing that a lot with a lot of development work...there's a lot of planning. If your economy is not developed, there's a lot of planning to actually jump-starting an economy. Now, what does that do to your free market sentiments? Akin: You know, I'm a Deng apostle to a large extent...Tobi: [Laughs]Akin: I always say that the people I follow, the sentiments I espouse, I treat them like a Christmas hamper. I take the things I want out of it...Tobi: Okay.Akin: The ones I don't need I keep aside. So when sometimes I tell people that: look, I love Deng; they tell me: but this guy sanctioned the death of students...Tobi: Yeah.Akin: And I say look, Deng human rights, er...Tobi: Record.Akin: Record, I don't need. But his liberal views on opening the Chinese economy, I want to take that. I try to say that I'm ideologically fluid. There are parts of a capitalist market that I like, there are parts of a social welfarist market that I like. I feel that, yes, the poorest people need to be supported, [the] poor and vulnerable people need to be supported. I feel that workers need to be protected, but I also feel that capital needs to get significant returns to continue to invest. I don't hold any firm views. I think that the plans for a country will always be dependent on the time and the situation that the country finds itself. For example, I'm a card-carrying member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), people say there are no ideologies in Nigeria, I disagree. APC is a left of centre party...Tobi: Really?Akin: Yes. It's a social welfarist party and that's why if you think about things like the social investment program, this is the only time you have seen in Nigeria where there's been a very ambitious, you might say, overambitious social investment program targeted at various groups of people including people who are vulnerable and that's a sign of an ideology. It's the one part of the APC manifesto I can say, 100 percent, has been implemented. But you know why it's important to do that today is that there's an existential problem in the country. If people cannot eat, you can't educate them. So when we say there is a homegrown school feeding program, it's not a waste of money. Nutrition is a big part of education; because if the kids do not eat properly, there's nothing...they can't learn nothing. Even getting kids to school...even if you say they're sending their children to school to only go and eat, at least the kids are going to school. So having something like a homegrown school feeding program, for example, is, for me, something that I will... forget the economic impact of supporting farmers and cooks and etcetera, that's even like a spin-off. The real impact is getting kids to school. And so for me, the next level of this conversation is how do we now measure the impact? How do we measure enrollments rate? In my state, for example, I think we can show you some numbers of how enrollment has gone up in schools since that program started, of how many children are benefitting from those kinds of meals. Now, that, for me, is a social welfare program that is very important. But on the second part of it - I will also say - you have to free up things like capital controls. You have to allow people bring in and export their capital as they wish... even with this capital restrictions, people will still bring money into Nigeria. So, for me, you have to take what works from different ideologies. Sometimes you're going to take some socialist principles, sometimes you're going to take some capitalist principles, and we have seen markets straddle the contradictions quite well. They will say oh, it's market socialism. People have started to mix... the closer you are to the centre now the more populist you tend to be. So I don't think that the world, especially the developing markets, will benefit from very rigid ideologies. I think that we've gone beyond that. The iron curtain is fallen now since when? Glasnost and Perestroika are long gone. So even the people who were ideologically pure have moved towards the centre...bar maybe a place like Cuba, I don't think that you will see people hold very rigid views on ideology anymore. Even the United States has some socialist protectionist ideologies. Donald Trump is a... you could argue is a republican president, right?Tobi: Yeah.Akin: But he is probably the biggest critic of globalisation today. So you find that the UK is going through a painful Brexit process. That's an anti-globalisation...Tobi: Move.Akin: Move, right? Again, pushed by whom? By a conservative party. I have friends who are die-hard conservatives. They don't speak about Brexit. They stay silent on it. But I remind them from time to time that: your party which is a conservative party is the one that took the Union to a referendum. Let's not forget that. That's not something... it's almost ...you should expect the reverse.Tobi: Not Corbyn. Not Labour.Akin: You should expect Labour to actually be the ones pushing this kind of agenda, so it tells you that there are no rigid views, there are no hard-coded views anymore in the world.Tobi: Let me ask you a bit of a comical question on that note. Akin: Uh uh.Tobi: Where does the border closure fit in the APC ideology?Akin: You know the thing about this podcast is that they ask career-limiting questions...LaughsAkin: But I'm happy to answer that. Honestly, there are some things that are existential and on the border closure people have asked me on social media for my views and I've said: "look, we have to be a bit more nuanced about this conversation." I don't think that we've optimised the decision process properly. I think the biggest thing that we could have done differently is to allow the people best suited to lead the conversation lead the conversation. Personal opinion: I don't think that customs should be leading a conversation about trade. There's a reason why we have a trade office, there's a reason why we have a Ministry of Trade and Investment. That ministry should be front and centre of the conversation and should draw in the different parties on a need-to-know or a need-to-be-there basis. So I think in terms of coordination, we have led the conversation from a customs perspective which is not where we should lead the conversation from, and that for me is the biggest issue. But should our neighbours play by the rules? Yes, they should. Is trans-shipment a major issue? Yes, it is. Is the Beninois economy designed to exploit Nigeria? Yes, it is. That is the reality.Tobi: How is that? Please explain.Akin: If you sit down and you create an economy and I'll send you some work that shows that for the last 30, 40 years, these guys have built an industry basically to rebag and repackage products against the ECOWAS protocols into Nigeria. It's a small economy, we laugh about it and say it's Nigeria's 37th state but if you think about [it]...this is not the first time we're closing borders [and] the thing is that we've repeated this thing so many times and I'm worried that we're still not learning that these are symptomatic issues and we are not dealing with the root cause. For me, it is how do we introduce technology into surveillance, into border surveillance. These have security implications. Forget rice. Drugs come in through these borders, guns come in through these borders. There are far more serious existential issues that we need to solve for. How do we do the surveillance? How do we ensure that the cultural trade flows are not shut? Remember there are families on both sides of the divide - there are Yorubas across both sides of the border - how do we ensure that these traditional trade corridors are not shut but (we) also ensured that the territorial integrity of the country is protected? So I don't think that it's a one-size-fits-all discussion. I think that it's a more nuanced conversation. Is the border closure the right thing to do? I don't know. I think history will judge but I definitely think that the Beninois government needed this kick up the backside. Now, should it start from customs? No. I think we should sit down and say what is our broader trade position and what position do we want these guys to take on board? I think we should be able to say, "look, how do we collaborate with you?" Can we, for example, because of the efficiency issues with our ports, can we have a situation where goods come in through the Beninois ports, they are processed through there and they earn a fee for that? And then those goods come into Nigeria. That is a way to think about it. Even from a Nigeria perspective, sometimes we slap levies on products that are against some of these our protocols. We have a common external tariff, we sometimes go against that and we say, oh, 70 percent duty. Meanwhile, the rest of the sub-region is charging 20 percent. But can we say to these guys "guys, you know what, out of this 20 percent you guys take 10, we take 10." Ten is better than zero. I think that what we have to be able to do is to decentralize port infrastructure to ensure that goods can move out of Nigeria fairly, fairly, easily. - AOTobi: Yeah.Akin: Let's start to have those conversations. That is the conversation that we need to have and I think that's the conversation we are not having. It can't be a stick all the time, it has to be [a] carrot-and-stick approach. We've got to say, oh, come, how can we optimise this process? These things are coming into Nigeria anyway. How do we move exports? How do we ensure that you can process some of our exports? And that's a conversation that we should have as a sub-region. How do we ensure that Nigeria's customs officials, if this is what your port is built for, we might as well embed our people there and ensure that we are seeing what is coming in? Those are the conversations I think we should have. How does Nigeria expand and before you know it...because we are the biggest economy in the subregion, we have to own that leadership; and for me, that's a bigger issue. That how do we sit with our partners and say, "okay, use your port as entry point into Nigeria as well but the trade-off is that our people will be part and parcel of your process to see what is coming in." I think those are the conversations that we need to have if we're not having. But did something need to be done? Absolutely. And I don't think this is an APC or PDP issue, this is an existential issue for Nigeria. So it's not a partisan ideological issue. This something that we need to resolve. Yes, I know that there are people who have very strong views: you should not shut your borders etc. You should not do this, free trade blah blah blah... but there is no real free trade anywhere. When you think about it critically...Tobi: It's freer trade.Akin: It's freer trade. What is free trade? There are restrictions to trade and it's a per country restriction.Tobi: It's just degrees.Akin: It's just degrees and it's about where you are as a country in your development [and] what is important to you. If the United States says today "well, we don't want to allow wheat into our country." They won't. Mr Trump, for example, is very keen to say "Mr Cook, you have to manufacture more of your products inputs in the United States." Is that free trade? So you've got to ask yourself, what is free trade? Free trade is a misnomer. Yes, you want freer trade, you want to liberalize as much as possible but you want to liberalize within certain conditions and ultimately the job of the government is to optimise value for Nigeria. How that optimisation of value happens is then dependent on where we are as a country at that point in time. So, yeah, there are other things that we have to do with the borders and there are conversations we need to have with our neighbours and I know that some of those conversations are happening. But is there a straight forward answer to that? I don't think it's a yes or no [answer]. It's not a binary conversation at all.Tobi: Okay. So now, here's my argument and a bit of a counter to your position. Yes, I take your point on territorial integrity and the need to actually have a safe and secure border. Absolutely important. But don't you think we are treating the trade issue a bit too much as a zero-sum? Yes, I get why trans-shipment is a problem but if you consider the size of Nigeria's economy and what I think our ambition should be, If we actually focus a lot of our development strategy and policies in areas like building export disciplines in high-tech manufacturing goods, I don't think it would really matter if rice is coming from the Beninois border, really.Akin: Here we go again.Tobi: Like someone, actually a guest of mine, said that rice in this dispute has become a bit of a political crop and...Akin: Was that Mr Fawehinmi?Tobi: No.LaughsTobi: No...and tomorrow it's going to be tomatoes or fertilizers or whatever. But is that really... aren't we really obsessing over table stakes so to speak?Akin: Great question and I think, honestly...first, it's not a zero-sum conversation. I always say you can walk and chew gum at the same time. I don't think that the border issue precludes us from focusing on export discipline and I think, in fact, export discipline is something that as a country we haven't paid any attention to. I spoke with someone who is very knowledgeable about exporting, so this is reported speech, and he said to me that for him today, as a CEO of a large company, he has to go through 14 steps to export his products out of Nigeria and that even prevents his company from using Nigeria as a hub for sub-regional production. And I think, for me, there are two issues: there's the single-window conversation which I hope our government - and when I say our government, our APC government - is able to resolve before 2023. I think it will be the single most important policy issue as regards exports discipline that we can resolve; just ensuring that (everybody) you can do everything in one place, and you don't have to go through the multiplicity of agency interaction. I think that is a critical part of the next wave of our Doing Business reforms, and I know that there are many stakeholders in that space that need to be managed, but I think that navigating that is a critical thing for the government. I think that obviously the port efficiency is a problem and as an individual, I'm very pleased to hear and welcome the development of new ports. I think the Badagry deep-sea port is super important. I think having something up in the South-South, potentially around Akwa-Ibom, is very important. Because, if you think about places like Calabar, people say why is that port not efficient? I don't know the economic decision of citing a port in Calabar. I don't know the draft [or] if the draft was taken into consideration. Many of the locations we're talking about are shallow draft locations that will take significant amount of money to dredge; and therefore, it weakens the business case for these ports. So when people then say "oh, why Lagos?" The most obvious reason for Lagos is the draft. So, I think that what we have to be able to do is to decentralize port infrastructure to ensure that goods can move out of Nigeria fairly, fairly, easily. But I hear you about export discipline and I hear you about focusing on special economic zones and that's why I was very happy to see the Special Economic Zone company setup. Even though that has run into some legislative challenges at the moment, we are hopeful that they will be resolved very early this year. In our state, for example...In Ekiti, we are keen to set up a Special Economic Zone: one, for the knowledge economy, and that is to export services. So things like Business Process Outsourcing which is effectively an export...Tobi: Yeah.Akin: If you think about it. Because we feel like service export helps us to leapfrog some of the infrastructure challenges that you face with industry and manufacturing. Challenges around power. Challenges around transport. Challenges around port limitation. So, we think that focusing on services helps us to navigate around those constraints; and there is no reason why we can't be a BPO hub in the country. If we get broadband and dedicated power rights, I hear from the people who should know that Nigerians speak particularly toneless English, therefore we need less accent training than, say, the southeast Asian market which is the hub of that space now. So we have a very critical upside. The other thing is that at our time zones… we are very well set for, sort of, like, the Central European market etc, and labour is cheap here, you know... cheaper, I'd say, here. We have some of the building blocks in place to be a service export destination.The other thing I'd say with the SEZ is that, we also feel that from an Agric prospective, we definitely should be thinking about exporting a lot more of our produce. And to your point, I don't see any reason why things like rice or tomato should be [a] political issue. I think for me, [it is] absolutely correct that we should be building expert discipline around agriculture and there's no reason why we should not focus on certain crops. Whether it's maize, weather it's cassava, especially with a lot of the gluten-free direction that nutrition is going towards, you know... cassava as the base of a gluten-free export market is certainly very sellable. So I hundred percent agree that expert discipline should be where we're focused, and I think that we can do both. So I don't think that this precludes that conversation from happening.Final point, I think, is, we need to think about sort of charter cities and SEZs and the legislation around that a lot better. The process where people just go and register in a free trade zone just because of tax incentives is, for me, a waste of time. Because you now have a situation where two companies are competing, one of them is paying taxes, the other one is not because they're in a free trade zone. Actually we should be giving the people that incentive if they're exporting. There are some misnomers, there are some things that need to be adjusted. If a place is a special economic zone, it should be because it's geared towards making Nigerian products more competitive internationally and if we are not able to deliver that then should you actually get the benefits, the fiscal benefits? I don't think so. Now, this is my personal opinion and these are some of the issues that I think that we need to debate a lot more vigorously. I think, just generally speaking, across all the things we've discussed, one of the things I worry about is that I think we are not having the right intellectual discussions about policy. We're there discussing which governor believes in stomach infrastructure, which party does A, which party does B, somebody brought Facebook to Nigeria...Tobi: [Laughs]Akin: This other person does not believe in free press...I think that we are losing the opportunity to have a lot of intellectual debates. You know, one of the things I love about China in the 70s and 80s [is], those guys fought themselves on the pages of newspapers with intellectual arguments and when they went to battle, it was a battle of ideas. It wasn't a personal discussion. It wasn't that I dislike you. It wasn't that you are a member of [another party], they were all one party. They were all CCP but the intellectual arguments were fought vigorously, bitterly at some point...Tobi: So, why do you think we're having problems having [intellectual debates]? Is it that our national IQ is low because China and the whole of Asia have that going for them?Akin: I don't think... I think that these guys have also developed a nation of...over a much longer period.Tobi: True.We need Nigerian intellectuals to step up their game. - AOAkin: We're talking about a civilization that goes across, you know...Tobi: About five thousand years.Akin: Five...thousands of years. In that period they've never had a period of where intellectual debates have been frozen. We have had periods where we've just had a freeze. We are twenty years into democracy, I don't think between 1979 and 1999 there was a space for any intellectual discussion, everything was done by decree and by fiat. So I think we're going to have to build that over time. I also think that our universities are not doing enough. I mean, I expect today professors of economics should be writing about the implication of land border controls, we should have papers coming out, we should have people discussing these matters. Why do we have professors of economics in Nigeria who cannot debate existential issues that face the country, who cannot say this is our view? How many economic positions do you read outside the Monetary Policy Committee of the Central Bank? Who else shares public views? You are dependent on MPC members personal statement as the basis, and in a lot of these conversations, there's a lot of groupthink.Tobi: Yeah.Akin: Because they've already made the decision and they're just now writing [the] statement to support those decisions. But I expect on the back page of our newspapers... I mean, whether or not you agree with Henry Boyo of blessed memory...Tobi: Yeah.Akin: He certainly brought a view, you might not agree with the view, but he brought a view that he actively debated. I look at our institutions and I say, where are the discussions happening? Where is the think-tank driving this conversation? If I look at the EAC [Economic Advisory Council] for example, one of the things I say to people is that I certainly am rooting for the EAC, it's chaired by my former boss, but I also feel like we've lost the benefit of having people like Doyin Salami and Charles Soludo and the rest of the members from sharing their personal views in [the] public domain. Because now, you know, they are a member of an advisory...Tobi: CouncilAkin: Council, they can't really speak publicly because it might be taken as the view of the EAC etc. But we need Nigerian intellectuals to step up their game. That, for me, is where we are missing it because... I remember there was a period where... I think it was six of us... I can't remember how many of us... did a week's...um, different pieces every day on foreign exchange liberalisation and I was amazed at the debate that it stimulated and all of us were not... I won't say that we are academics. Maybe out of five of us, Nonso Obikili was the only one that has a PhD, but it was important to have people, at least, put those ideas in the open and let's debate them. And that's one of the reasons I like that people like Feyi constantly, um...Tobi: Engages.Akin: Engage in these debates, because let's have an ideas based conversation. I think Pius Adesanmi of blessed memory said this, and said that: the reason I write is not because I want to change or I think I can change the views or the behaviour of these hard-headed government officials, but it is so that two thousand years from now someone is not going to come and say these people lived like animals and they didn't think...that in the midst of all of this madness, let them even see records that some of us were Thinkers, some of us were speaking. And I found it quite... it was quite sad for me that that was his last public post or article because it was almost like a man that had a premonition that "I might not be here for much longer but I need to let my ideas outlive me" and I think that's what we should be doing. We're talking about China now, we can read the arguments of 1978, 1984 and we can see how those arguments mirror Nigeria of 2019. If those things were not there, we won't even be able to apply them to our current realities, but who is writing the stories of Nigeria today? So I think that's one thing I will say that the intellectual debate is not public and I don't even know that it's happening. I don't know that the universities are writing, and that's one thing that we should be focused on, not ASUU going on strike. The real issue is what are you contributing to town? How are town and gown meeting? How are those two sectors interacting and integrating? It goes even beyond writing... how are we preparing people for the workforce? I was very happy to see the UI Vice Chancellor engaging, saying this is what we are doing as a university and I think that's the kind of engagement that we want to see. We want people to come and... to share their opinions. You studied economic theory for thirty years, how does our current reality fit into this study? And I think that that's how you improve the quality of public discourse.Tobi: So, now, in terms of public discourse, do you think that there is too much ideology in that space?Akin: Too little.Tobi: Really?Akin: I think there's too little.Tobi: Okay, so, I was pointing this out to someone. You mentioned the EAC, right?Akin: Uh-hmm.Tobi: I think except for Doyin Salami, really - I think every other person on that advisory council has some sort of protectionist sentiments.Akin: I disagree.Tobi: Really.Akin: I disagree.Tobi: Okay.Akin: Some are. Some have.Tobi: I know Soludo does. I know Bismark does.Akin: I don't think... I think to be honest, everybody has some protectionist ideology, everybody does. I won't say Soludo does that much.Tobi: He was opposed to the EPA, for example.Akin: But, for some good reasons. The thing is that this thing is not a wholesale opposition. There are parts of this agreement that, to be honest, do not strategically support Nigeria's economic development. You have to recognise that when people come to this table, they come to the table holding nationalistic views disguised as globalised views. At the end of the day, everybody wants what's best for them, and I think that, again, until recently and until Ambassador Sakoye of blessed memory, we didn't have an office that was coordinating our treaties, our agreements, people were signing all sorts of things without even knowing the implication of what they were signing. So I don't think that the opposition was wholesale. There are some people there whose views I can't say I know for sure. There's Iyabo Masha, for example - she used to be at [the] World Bank if I'm not mistaken. I don't think that if you spend so much time at the World Bank you would hold fairly strong protectionist views unless you were able to mask it sufficiently but there are some people that obviously, I mean, Ode Ojowu, for example, is very clear about where he stands on some of these things. But I think the mix is good and the debate...look, it's useful to have people from both sides of the divide. Tobi: True.Akin: We will improve the quality of the discuss by having the divergent views and having diversity of opinions. Tobi: So, let's talk about the influence of ideology in Nigerian politics. Is it too much or too little? And what would work in terms of generating ideas?Akin: Look, at the end of the day, I think we are still fairly underdeveloped in terms of our politics because voter engagement is still at...I'd say, at the kindergarten phase of voter enlightenment and voter engagement. I think that people are still too poor to engage in high-level discourse, and, so, for people, it's still a function of "I want to survive" which is why you find that people are willing to trade the long-term benefits for the immediacy of "pay me 2,000 [naira] and I'll vote for you." And I tell people that, look, this is similar to Lincoln back in the day. I don't know if you remember, Lincoln's slogan was: vote yourself a farm. (And) I joke about it and I say [in] Nigeria the [slogan] is to "vote yourself a pot of stew".LaughsAkin: But if you think about it at that time, people were only interested in "give me land" in the US. So when you're faced with existential issues, people can't think about ideology. It's too abstract...they're looking for mundane...they're more mundane in their expectations, you know. But I think that when you start to improve the quality of life, people then can start thinking...it's almost like Maslow's hierarchy of needs...Tobi: Yeah.Akin: They start to think about "oh, what's more important? Who's thinking about education? Who's improving healthcare?" I say to people that, look, you should be able to say, as a woman, my biggest issue today is maybe "gender mainstreaming", maybe "maternal mortality" and say "look, I'm going to only support a government that emphasizes these two things". If you do not agree to these three issues, then we will not vote for you. The unions are very good at it and this is why [what] I always say about the stubborn minority - the unions, the market women; whatever you say, they get whatever they want. You might disagree with what they want but they get it. The trade unions get it because they will just down tools and they force you to a table. Now, how do we as a broader population start to force people to that table? And this is why I think that the advent of social media is a good thing because more and more...I mean, I was happy to see people engage in a discourse around foreign exchange and exchange rates. Everybody suddenly became an Economist and had a view of where the Naira should be trading. You know, it's a good conversation to have. People are now saying should we close our borders? Whether those views are knowledgeable or not? I want those views on the table. Those are views to have. They are important views so I don't... I think that we are still at a growing phase and I think it will only continue to improve but we're definitely going along that continuum. It didn't happen overnight anywhere in the world, the quality of the politics, the quality of the discussions did not improve overnight, it took time and we have to bank some of those marginal gains. Let me ask you a...okay, well, you are the one asking the questions so I won't ask you a question...Tobi: Shoot.Akin: But think about '99 and 2019...Tobi: Yeah.Akin: And where Nigeria is in its politics, we've advanced... in the quality of the discussions we're having. Politics in 1999, nobody even knew who those guys were. They had no antecedents. I mean, I voted AD in '99 not because of anything but just decide, oh, this is the party of our people. This is Awolowo's party. All you needed to win an election in Yorubaland in '99 was to do the peace sign and wear the Awolowo cap. Some people like Asiwaju did not even need the cap, he just needed the peace sign.Tobi: [Laughs]Akin: Once you were endorsed by Afenifere, you were locked in to win an election. Now, nobody really bothers about that. Whether they support or they oppose you, people a lot more independent in their views. Back then if you were Ohaneze Ndigbo you win in the South-East, I don't think that that holds very much now. Otherwise, APGA would be the dominant party in the South-East.Tobi: But to pick up on that point, wouldn't you say that was better in some sense? Okay, if I'm voting in the South-West, for example, and whether true or false if someone is running on an Awolowo platform, I know the antecedents of that...Akin: But the truth...Tobi: I know the history of that...Akin: But the truth of that is that people only use that... some people use that as a vehicle to get power. It's not because they believed in the philosophy of man or the philosophy of the UPN or the Action Group. Tell them to tell you any part of the AG manifesto that they know. They don't but they've realised that people took things at face value and if you wore a cap and did a peace sign you win an election. Tobi: But is that any less preferable than 2000 naira at the polling unit that we have now?Akin: I'll tell you one thing...I'm a big fan of marginal gains as you might have suspected, there were times... look, till today, the election that was superintended by Maurice Iwu, show me anywhere where you can find the breakdown of results whether real or imagined per polling unit for the presidential election. The's a summary, take-it-or-leave-it there's no breakdown of the election anywhere.Tobi: How did he get away with that by the way?Akin: The point is Obasanjo made him get away with it. Let's be clear... so let me tell you one thing: I'm not saying elections are perfect, the fact that people are paying for you to vote for them means that they believe your vote counts...(because if you don't pay) Let's be honest about this, right? If I'm paying you 2000 naira for you to vote for me what does that tell you? It tells you that they need you to act to vote to win the election. They actually need that act from you. In 2007, in 2011... by 2011 things has started changing but as of 2007, you did not need that physical act of voting to happen. What I'm saying is that things have shifted... you might... people can disagree and it's an opinion, but I'm saying things have shifted, they might not be perfect or close to perfect but things have shifted and our goal is to ensure that things continue to shift. Maybe in 2023, we will create a situation where you can't even tell how I have voted to remove the incentive of paying me to vote. INEC did some things like, say, we don't want to see mobile phones, etcetera. We're going to keep improving the process. I think that we have moved. People are now saying, oh, we want to... some people will say oh, PDP wanted to infiltrate and hack our servers. Somebody will say the results on the server was different from the one you published. We are now having a conversation where we've moved the realm of the debate to cybersecurity... Tobi: Cyberspace.Akin: And cyber attacks. Ten years ago the conversation was they snatched 20 ballot boxes.Tobi: [Laughs] But they're still snatching ballot boxes.Akin: But it's reduced.Tobi: Yeah... yeah.Akin: Let me tell you, if you think about it, twenty years ago people were saying, look, we did not even vote here.Tobi: True.Akin: We are reducing those issues. Social media is helping us democratize those issues. If you look at the 2019 elections, whether real or manufactured people were reporting issues in their polling units on the go. You could tell even just looking at some of the results per PU who was going to win an election where. Ekiti elections for example - I was away, I was not even in the country on the day of the election and when I saw the results from my polling unit, I knew immediately that Dr Fayemi had won that election, because we were on course to win Ikole local government, which is my local government, which is a place that, historically, we've always struggled with as a party. So you can tell that look, elections are starting to count, matter a lot more. It's not perfect, it's not anywhere close to perfect but let's not say that there have not been any gains and I have my views on one of the biggest reasons why we've seen those gains. It's the absence of General Obasanjo...President Obasanjo (apologies) from mainstream politics in Nigeria.Tobi: Why? Explain that.Akin: Because I think that the winner-takes-all mentality that he personally projected transcended beyond him and then influenced, broadly speaking, political parties on the country. I think that President Yar'Adua, Jonathan and Buhari have been less involved in ensuring that their parties remain dominant across the country. President Yar'Adua, for example, he had an "I came in through a tainted process...Sometimes keeping the people you meet in government is as important or more important than appointing new people. - AOTobi: Yeah.Akin: And, I am embarrassed by it and the way I will resolve it is by taking my hands off and saying let the will of the people be done. President Buhari, for example, has shown a willingness to work across parties with the governors. If you talk to the governors in Nigeria today, all of them are united in the fact that regardless of our political parties this President is happy to work with us. There was a time in this country where ecological fund and all these special projects were only reserved for gov

Increasing World Climate Ambition / Moving the Paris Climate Deal Ahead / Beyond the Headlines / Bringing Back Butternut Trees / Rating the Climate Promises of 2020 Prexy Candidates / Seeking Justice for the Ogoni Nine / BirdNote®: Brewer's Sparrow, Sageland Singer Polls show climate change is a rising concern for Democratic voters looking towards the 2020 presidential election. Greenpeace has a scorecard for each candidate based on commitments to a Green New Deal and phasing out fossil fuels. Also, many of the 2,000 delegates from 185 nations at UN Climate session in Germany are seeking to raise the ambition of nations in the Paris Climate Agreement, in hopes of limiting planetary warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. And Ogoni Nine widow Esther Kiobel is one step closer to justice in her battle against Royal Dutch Shell. She has pursued the oil giant for nearly 25 years, since the Nigerian government executed her husband in 1995 on trumped up charges, allegedly encouraged by Shell. Ms. Kiobel's husband was part of a group known as the Ogoni Nine, including Ken Saro-Wiwa which fought against Shell for environmental and economic damages to their homeland near the Niger River Delta. Now Ms. Kiobel will finally have her case heard in a Dutch case in her bid for reparations and the clearing of her husband's name. Seeking justice for the Ogoni Nine and more, in this episode of Living on Earth from PRI.

Increasing World Climate Ambition / Moving the Paris Climate Deal Ahead / Beyond the Headlines / Bringing Back Butternut Trees / Rating the Climate Promises of 2020 Prexy Candidates / Seeking Justice for the Ogoni Nine / BirdNote®: Brewer's Sparrow, Sageland Singer Polls show climate change is a rising concern for Democratic voters looking towards the 2020 presidential election. Greenpeace has a scorecard for each candidate based on commitments to a Green New Deal and phasing out fossil fuels. Also, many of the 2,000 delegates from 185 nations at UN Climate session in Germany are seeking to raise the ambition of nations in the Paris Climate Agreement, in hopes of limiting planetary warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. And Ogoni Nine widow Esther Kiobel is one step closer to justice in her battle against Royal Dutch Shell. She has pursued the oil giant for nearly 25 years, since the Nigerian government executed her husband in 1995 on trumped up charges, allegedly encouraged by Shell. Ms. Kiobel's husband was part of a group known as the Ogoni Nine, including Ken Saro-Wiwa which fought against Shell for environmental and economic damages to their homeland near the Niger River Delta. Now Ms. Kiobel will finally have her case heard in a Dutch case in her bid for reparations and the clearing of her husband's name. Seeking justice for the Ogoni Nine and more, in this episode of Living on Earth from PRI.

Increasing World Climate Ambition / Moving the Paris Climate Deal Ahead / Beyond the Headlines / Bringing Back Butternut Trees / Rating the Climate Promises of 2020 Prexy Candidates / Seeking Justice for the Ogoni Nine / BirdNote®: Brewer's Sparrow, Sageland Singer Polls show climate change is a rising concern for Democratic voters looking towards the 2020 presidential election. Greenpeace has a scorecard for each candidate based on commitments to a Green New Deal and phasing out fossil fuels. Also, many of the 2,000 delegates from 185 nations at UN Climate session in Germany are seeking to raise the ambition of nations in the Paris Climate Agreement, in hopes of limiting planetary warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. And Ogoni Nine widow Esther Kiobel is one step closer to justice in her battle against Royal Dutch Shell. She has pursued the oil giant for nearly 25 years, since the Nigerian government executed her husband in 1995 on trumped up charges, allegedly encouraged by Shell. Ms. Kiobel's husband was part of a group known as the Ogoni Nine, including Ken Saro-Wiwa which fought against Shell for environmental and economic damages to their homeland near the Niger River Delta. Now Ms. Kiobel will finally have her case heard in a Dutch case in her bid for reparations and the clearing of her husband's name. Seeking justice for the Ogoni Nine and more, in this episode of Living on Earth from PRI.

Increasing World Climate Ambition / Moving the Paris Climate Deal Ahead / Beyond the Headlines / Bringing Back Butternut Trees / Rating the Climate Promises of 2020 Prexy Candidates / Seeking Justice for the Ogoni Nine / BirdNote®: Brewer's Sparrow, Sageland Singer Polls show climate change is a rising concern for Democratic voters looking towards the 2020 presidential election. Greenpeace has a scorecard for each candidate based on commitments to a Green New Deal and phasing out fossil fuels. Also, many of the 2,000 delegates from 185 nations at UN Climate session in Germany are seeking to raise the ambition of nations in the Paris Climate Agreement, in hopes of limiting planetary warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius. And Ogoni Nine widow Esther Kiobel is one step closer to justice in her battle against Royal Dutch Shell. She has pursued the oil giant for nearly 25 years, since the Nigerian government executed her husband in 1995 on trumped up charges, allegedly encouraged by Shell. Ms. Kiobel's husband was part of a group known as the Ogoni Nine, including Ken Saro-Wiwa which fought against Shell for environmental and economic damages to their homeland near the Niger River Delta. Now Ms. Kiobel will finally have her case heard in a Dutch case in her bid for reparations and the clearing of her husband's name. Seeking justice for the Ogoni Nine and more, in this episode of Living on Earth from PRI.

1-Diritti Umani, in Olanda inizia una causa civile contro la Shell per il ruolo svolto nell'impiccagione di 9 militanti Ogoni tra cui il poeta Ken Saro Wiwa. ..La multinazionale è stata denunciata da 4 donne nigeriane che avevano perso i mariti. ..( Raffaele Masto) ..2-Spagna. l'indipendentismo catalano a processo. ..( Giulio Maria Piantadosi) ..3-Stati Uniti: raggiunto al congresso un compromesso per evitare un nuovo Shutdown. ..L'accordo prevede 1,3 miliardi di dollari per realizzare delle barriere al confine con il Messico. ..Donald Trump pretendeva 5,7 miliardi di dollari. ( Roberto Festa) ..5-Guadalajara 7 giugno 1970: il giorno in cui il portiere Gordon Banks è diventato una legenda. Addio al campione inglese , autore della parata del secolo. ( Daniele Fisichella)..6- Allevamenti intensivi finanziati con i fondi europei. Secondo il rapporto denuncia di Greenpeace Il 70% dei campi nell'Ue è per nutrire il bestiame. ( Federica Ferrario Greenpeace) ..7-Terre agricole: “ il miglior offerente si prende tutto “ Ricecatori dell'università di Oakland ac cusa la bancva mondiale di incoraggiare il land grabbing. ( Marta Gatti)

1-Diritti Umani, in Olanda inizia una causa civile contro la Shell per il ruolo svolto nell’impiccagione di 9 militanti Ogoni tra cui il poeta Ken Saro Wiwa. ..La multinazionale è stata denunciata da 4 donne nigeriane che avevano perso i mariti. ..( Raffaele Masto) ..2-Spagna. l’indipendentismo catalano a processo. ..( Giulio Maria Piantadosi) ..3-Stati Uniti: raggiunto al congresso un compromesso per evitare un nuovo Shutdown. ..L'accordo prevede 1,3 miliardi di dollari per realizzare delle barriere al confine con il Messico. ..Donald Trump pretendeva 5,7 miliardi di dollari. ( Roberto Festa) ..5-Guadalajara 7 giugno 1970: il giorno in cui il portiere Gordon Banks è diventato una legenda. Addio al campione inglese , autore della parata del secolo. ( Daniele Fisichella)..6- Allevamenti intensivi finanziati con i fondi europei. Secondo il rapporto denuncia di Greenpeace Il 70% dei campi nell'Ue è per nutrire il bestiame. ( Federica Ferrario Greenpeace) ..7-Terre agricole: “ il miglior offerente si prende tutto “ Ricecatori dell’università di Oakland ac cusa la bancva mondiale di incoraggiare il land grabbing. ( Marta Gatti)

1-Diritti Umani, in Olanda inizia una causa civile contro la Shell per il ruolo svolto nell’impiccagione di 9 militanti Ogoni tra cui il poeta Ken Saro Wiwa. ..La multinazionale è stata denunciata da 4 donne nigeriane che avevano perso i mariti. ..( Raffaele Masto) ..2-Spagna. l’indipendentismo catalano a processo. ..( Giulio Maria Piantadosi) ..3-Stati Uniti: raggiunto al congresso un compromesso per evitare un nuovo Shutdown. ..L'accordo prevede 1,3 miliardi di dollari per realizzare delle barriere al confine con il Messico. ..Donald Trump pretendeva 5,7 miliardi di dollari. ( Roberto Festa) ..5-Guadalajara 7 giugno 1970: il giorno in cui il portiere Gordon Banks è diventato una legenda. Addio al campione inglese , autore della parata del secolo. ( Daniele Fisichella)..6- Allevamenti intensivi finanziati con i fondi europei. Secondo il rapporto denuncia di Greenpeace Il 70% dei campi nell'Ue è per nutrire il bestiame. ( Federica Ferrario Greenpeace) ..7-Terre agricole: “ il miglior offerente si prende tutto “ Ricecatori dell’università di Oakland ac cusa la bancva mondiale di incoraggiare il land grabbing. ( Marta Gatti)

IHRB's Salil Tripathi talks to Lazarus Tamana of MOSOP's ongoing struggle for remedy for the Ogoni people whose lands and people have been devastated by oil operations in the Niger Delta since the early 1990s.

Nigeria hangs human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. Kenule “Ken” Saro-Wiwa was born on October 10, 1941 in Bori, Nigeria, a member of the Ogoni ethnic minority. The homelands of the Ogoni are in the Niger Delta, where oil extraction has negatively impacted the environment. As an adult, Saro-Wiwa became a successful businessman who in time turned his attention to writing novels and producing television programs – both to high acclaim. However, his political and environmental involvement caught the attention of Nigeria’s military government. In 1990, Saro-Wiwa founded MOSOP, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People, through which he and other supporters pressed the government to address the environmental damage from oil companies Shell and British Petroleum. In May 1994, the government arrested Saro-Wiwa, later sentencing him to death for the alleged murders of four Ogoni elders. Leaders from around the globe urged Nigeria’s government to grant clemency for what everyone knew to be trumped-up convictions. Despite world attention, however, Saro-Wiwa and eight other dissidents were executed on November 10, 1995. International response was swift; the Commonwealth suspended Nigeria and the European Union imposed sanctions. Despite UN resolutions to revisit the trial, the Nigerian government has not budged and Saro-Wiwa is still a convicted murderer. On the tenth anniversary of his hanging, at least 28 countries took place in commemorating Saro-Wiwa and the other eight victims. A year later a Living Memorial was unveiled by Saro-Wiwa’s son in London, England. Nigerian artist Sokari Douglas Camp sculpted an enormous silver steel bus which toured England in 2006. Douglas Camp said she was “trying to convey a bit of Nigerian spirit which laughs at itself all the time.” See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode, Zibby talks about the Chibok girls who have regained their freedom. She also talks about Ken Saro Wiwa and his fight for human and environmental rights for his people, the Ogoni region of Rivers state. King Sunny Ade makes an appearance as a vital topic on Naija 101 - where you can learn about Nigeria. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is mentioned as she has been signed up to face of Boots No 7 range. Nigerian journalists are also mentioned with their contribution to society.Brought to you by Wetin Dey UK.

In this episode, Zibby talks about the Chibok girls who have regained their freedom. She also talks about Ken Saro Wiwa and his fight for human and environmental rights for his people, the Ogoni region of Rivers state. King Sunny Ade makes an appearance as a vital topic on Naija 101 - where you can learn about Nigeria. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is mentioned as she has been signed up to face of Boots No 7 range. Nigerian journalists are also mentioned with their contribution to society.Brought to you by Wetin Dey UK.

If Nigeria's Dead were Oil Profits The UN has called on Nigeria to restore law and order in the northeast and investigate mass killings alleged, to have been carried, out in the past few weeks by the militant group, Boko Haram. Boko Haram's the same lot that last spring kidnapped 276 girls, most of whom have never been recovered. This January, while world attention was focused on the killings in Paris, Boko Haram waged an assault on two northern towns. Satellite imagery 'before and after' shows the town of Bega and its neighbor razed to the ground. The Nigerian government says 150, human rights groups say more than ten times that many were slaughtered. The exact numbers are hard to confirm. But one thing's pretty certain: if what's been dismissed as a religious squabble in the north was taking place in oil pipeline territory in the south, neither the government in Ajuba, nor the world's most powerful nations, would be watching the violence escalate. Black lives don't matter as much as white to the West, that's clear. But everywhere #profitsmattermost. Western media stereotypes notwithstanding, Nigeria's not some tin-pot state. The largest economy on the continent, a founding member of OPEC, one of the world's leading oil producers, it's not the government that's poor, only the vast majority of its people. Nigeria's seen billions of oil dollars flow through it, the lion's share to corporations including Chevron, Exxon and Shell, but the oil giants have kicked back plenty to Nigerian leaders, elected and not, in exchange for protection. The military's annual budget exceeds $6bn, and they've never been reluctant to use it to protect pipelines. The price of "security" has been paid in human life. In the mid 1990s when demonstrations by the people of Ogoniland threatened to shut down oil production, much of the Niger Delta was put under military occupation and "maintaining law and order" led to the killing of leading Ogoni activists including Ken Saro Wiwa. When a Chevron platform was occupied by youths, the company even provided its own helicopter to fly the armed forces in where they shot two unarmed protestors dead. Nigerians are going to the polls in mid February. President Goodluck Jonathan may be replaced. But it's the wealth that needs shifting, not just the politicians in Nigeria. More oil money going to taxes, and things the Ogoni activists were demanding, like schools, clean water and healthcare, might have produced more democracy and less corruption, and perhaps less of that military budget would be ending up in generals' pockets. And who knows? If poverty was a bit less dire and popular discontent a bit less severe, Nigeria just might be less fertile territory for misogynist maniacs promising power and vengeance. Would the West care more if Nigerians were white? No doubt. But one thing's for sure, if you could make money from school girls, the most powerful people in the world would be all over this. Watch my interview with Patrick Cockburn about the perils of the West's reaction to the Paris killings at GRITtv.org and watch The Laura Flanders Show, 9 pm Fridays on LINKtv. Write to me: laura@GRITtv.org.

Dr Owens Wiwa reads two poems written by Ken Saro-Wiwa “Ogoni! Ogoni! and “For Sister Majella McCarron”

Dr Owens Wiwa speaks about growing up in Ogoni and his close relationship with his brother Ken Saro-Wiwa

Sister Majella McCarron - Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People Image: Ken’s cap, MOSOP flag and letter

Ken Wiwa, son of Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, talks to Allan Gregg about his difficult relationship with his father. Ken Wiwa writes about it in his book, "In the Shadow of a Saint." (Original broadcast Feb 2001)

Ken Wiwa, son of Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, talks to Allan Gregg about his difficult relationship with his father. Ken Wiwa writes about it in his book, "In the Shadow of a Saint." (Original broadcast Feb 2001)