The Making of the Ogoni Ethnic Group

Abstract

The existence of the Ogoni ethnic group is taken for granted in the literature that has grown out of the minority rights and environmentalist campaigns of the 1990s. This article departs from this tradition by engaging the historical development of the Ogoni ethnic group, taking as its point of departure elite politics in the context of colonial categories and post-colonial politics. With comparative data on the development of ethnic groups in Nigeria, it shows how elite politics and state structures and administrative decisions influenced the development of the Ogoni ethnic group and the identity it purveys. It also shows that differing interests in oil with unequal power bases spurred rigid positions that served to facilitate or constrain the execution of the Ogoni identity-building project.

Climate Scholarship Needs Du Bois: Climate Crisis through the Lens of Racial and Colonial Capitalism*

“…There is also the question of ethnic politics within Nigeria and the role of the state in this, for which we would need to further develop the concept of the colonial state. In some ways, the Nigerian state bows to the interests of the more powerful ethnic groups within Nigeria vis‐à‐vis the Ogoni, but questions of resource allocation in the oil‐producing region of the Niger Delta also led to much mobilization and a process of group identity formation for the Ogoni (Isumonah 2004; Okonta 2008; Osaghae 1995). I will not deal with this here, but it is evident that the colonial state is a useful but not comprehensive analytical tool.…”

Oil, conflict, and the dynamics of resource struggle in the Niger Delta: A comparison of the Ogoni and Ijaw movements

“…Ijaw leaders branded the peaceful Ogoni struggle a failed strategy, vindicating the need to resort to violence. The two narratives convey the sense of a critical historical juncture represented by Saro-Wiwa's execution in 1995 by the then military administration of General Sani Abacha, an event argued to be one of the most significant factors that transformed the conflict into one characterized by militia activities (Comfort, 2002;Isumonah, 2004). The narratives indicate that the killing of Saro-Wiwa was not seen as solely an Ogoni issue; it was constructed as shared, especially by the young people in the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) who launched their operation climate change as a response to his execution.…”

“…After Birabi's death in 1953, no significant struggle was recorded in Ogoniland until Ken Saro-Wiwa emerged, determined to pick up where Birabi had left off. In 1962, after the collapse of OSRA, the Ogoni Divisional Union (ODU) was set up as an avenue to advance Ogoni interests, leading to the creation of Rivers state in 1967 (Isumonah, 2004(Isumonah, , 2015. While the ODU had preserved the Ogoni minority awareness within the state, it was replaced by two much less political Ogoni ethnic organizationsthe Ogoni Club, which comprised young Ogoni graduates, and the Kagote Club, which comprised the Ogoni elite (Isumonah, 2004: 442) and only later by the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP).…”

Nigeria’s Changing Security Matrix and Management of Insecurity

“…However, Ken Saro Wiwa, a writer, was able to organise his Ogoni kinsmen in the 1990s to challenge the Nigerian state over environmental degradation of Ogoniland and deprivation of Ogoni people of their resources (Isumoha 2004). The Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) which he founded articulated Ogoni demands in a document called the Ogoni Bill of Rights.…”