…as Ogoni Day is celebrated in two venues

By Jimitota Onoyume

PORT HARCOURT—The crack in the Movement for Survival of Ogoni People, MOSOP, was very visible yesterday, as Ogoni gathered at separate venues in Bori, headquarters of Khana Local Government Area, Rivers State, for this year’s Ogoni Day.

Sole Administrator, Ogoni Environment Protection Agency, OGEPA, Mr John Lawisa, said MOSOP, under the leadership of Mr Goodluck Diigbo, had taken the body to a greater height, adding that the conditions for cleaning of Ogoni environment would be acceptable to all.

According to him, the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP, report on Ogoni would only be implemented after some processes had been exhausted.

He enjoined all Ogoni to accept the Ogoni Central Indigenous Authority as a vehicle for their freedom and emancipation.

Meantime, MOSOP, led by Legborsi Pyagbara, lauded the Federal Government for the extent it had gone in the implementation of the UNEP report on Ogoni, urging the government to do more for the area.

He lamented the denial of sons of Ogoni to emerge governorship candidate of major political parties in the state.

He said: “Despite the right standing of our cause for political justice, the political parties still went ahead and abandoned the Ogoni people. We want to say that this deliberate exclusion of the Ogoni people is an invitation to imbalance and should not be supported.”