Ogoni Leader, Akpobari Says Ogoni Yet To Heal

Ogoni leader and environment rights activist, Celestine Akpobari, has condemned the move by the Nigerian government to resume oil production in Ogoniland, saying the land was not yet to heal from the devastation caused by previous oil production.
Akpobari, who spoke at the First 2026 Conversations Session of HOMEF, said it was insensitive of the Federal Government to push for oil production when the land had not healed.
“The land is still poisoned, the spills haven’t stopped, and yet, the Federal Government is pushing to resume oil exploration in Ogoniland,” he said at the conversations tagged, “Ogoni Struggles: Past Wounds and Future Risks.”
The conversation held on February 25, brought together civil society members, journalists, and advocates. The session concluded that there can be no talk of re-entry before there is justice.
Akpobari warned that community fractures don’t happen by accident but are engineered to serve political interests and break resistance. The weaponisation of poverty is a tactic, division is a strategy, and silence, he stated plainly, enables injustice.
He called for more sensitisation, political education, and the courage to name and shame those who were behind the pollution of the Ogoni environment.
He said the movement against the degradation of Ogoni that was built on Ken Saro-Wiwa’s foundations of integrity and sacrifice must be rebuilt, and the youth must be at the front of it.
The conversation also concluded resuming oil exploration in Ogoniland today, when the world was moving away from fossil fuels, was to render every sacrifice meaningless and return the people to ground zero. That means endless spills.
It said the gaps in current remediation efforts in Ogoniland had not been well addressed but government was rushing to restart production.
It said Ogoni struggle was still going on and would only be resolved by justice to the land to the people and to the environment.