‘When I win, Interview: Shafik Meghji
Shell has been accused of complicity in the unlawful arrest, detention and execution of the Ogoni Nine, as well as causing oil pollution that has ravaged Ogoniland and the wider Niger Delta. What was Ogoniland like before the company arrived? Ogoniland was a good place to be, a peaceful area where people enjoyed their culture, where brothers were good with brothers. Fishermen would go fishing; farmers would farm their crops. They would feed their families and send their kids to school.
But when Shell came in, they messed up the place, destroying the land and polluting our rivers. Right now, people are dying with cancer. There are no good hospitals, there are no 24-hour lights, no good water, no good roads, insecurity everywhere. That’s how Ogoniland is now. People are dying here of sickness; people are dying here of insecurity. Something has to be done.
Can you tell us a bit about your husband? My husband was a kind-hearted man, a good husband, a good father, a good leader. He was a peacemaker. He was horrified by what was happening to Ogoniland so he wrote to
the government, explaining the devastation his village was facing. He died because he dared to stand up to Shell and the Nigerian government. What pains me is he didn’t have the chance to enjoy the fruits of his labours because his life was cut short, at 35 years old. For him to be innocent and killed and for me to just keep my mouth shut? No. That’s why I keep crying for justice for him. I want the world to know how good he was, how innocent he was.
Can you give us a sense of the abuses and hardships that you and your family had to endure after your husband was arrested? We, the wives of the Ogoni Nine, took food for our husbands in prison because we were worried the prison food was poisoned. On one occasion an army officer tried to take advantage of me. I refused, he slapped me, I slapped him back and then he tied me up. He told me he had 200 ways of killing people and that he’d use one of them on me.
I was locked up and was only SPRING 2026 AMNESTY 21
Amnesty wins too’
On 10 November 1995, nine leading environmental activists were executed by Nigeria’s military government after a blatantly unfair trial. Falsely accused of involvement in murder, the Ogoni Nine – who included author and campaigner Ken Saro-Wiwa and government official Dr Barinem Kiobel – had in fact been put on trial because they had challenged the devastating impact of oil production by Shell in the Ogoniland region of the Niger Delta. Esther Kiobel, Dr Kiobel’s wife, has courageously fought for justice for her husband for three decades. On a recent visit to London, she shared her story.
Esther Kiobel © Amnesty International
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