A Call for Peace: The Non-Violent Struggle for Human Rights and Justice in Nigeria
With Omoyele Sowore
Discussion Chaired by Don Robotham
Wednesday, April 4th | 6:30pm to 8:30pm
Segal Theatre | The CUNY Graduate Center
365 5th Avenue, NYC
Omoyele Sowore is the founder and publisher of the Sahara Reporters, which covers news in Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa from a progressive perspective. He started Sahara Reporters as a groundbreaking online forum whose mission is to seek transparency, accountability and democratic character in Africa’s government and private spheres. The forum’s principal goal is to empower all citizens of various African nations to actively demand and defend their democratic rights. Launched in 2006, SaharaReporters receives 8 million pageviews per month. Apart from serving as an indispensable watchdog for African governments, the website also watches the mainstream media.
Recently, Saharareporters launched an online TV- “SaharaTV” . He is inspired by Arthur Schopenhauer’s quote that says “Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized In the first it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self-evident”
Omoyele Sowore started his career as a student activist in Nigeria in the late 80’s, first participating and leading student protest that led to the field of military rule, when he took part in student demonstrations protesting the conditions of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan of $120 million to be used for a Nigerian oil pipeline — the IMF loan conditions were to reduce the number of universities in the country from 28 to just 5.
In 1992 at University of Lagos, Sowore led 2,000 students in protest against Nigeria’s notorious kleptocracy. Police opened fire, killing seven. Sowore was arrested, interrogated and beaten, and later found out his family too had been put under pressure. But he refused to back down in the struggle for decent education in his country, and was soon elected executive president of the university students union.
Since then, it hasn’t exactly been plain sailing. He’s been imprisoned eight times and tortured, but he remains committed. “We’ve had supposed democracy for 6 and a half years and people still can’t eat,” he says. “Who has benefited? There’s no basic health care. We don’t have running water. We don’t have electricity, no basic education. Right now, Nigeria is a leaking basket. Shell and Chevron are among the biggest corporations in the world and they have benefited only a few people, the clique that runs the country. The Niger Delta area is polluted, occupied and heavily militarized. People get killed on behalf of the major oil companies everyday, that cannot be right.”
Human rights groups estimate that in the last 10 years military factions acting on behalf of multinational oil companies have killed more than 2,000 people in the Niger Delta. Currently abroad being treated for the effects of torture, Sowore is adamant he’ll return to Nigeria. “Change will not come to Nigeria on a platter of gold,” he insists. “If you want justice, you have to fight for it.”
