The Association of Ogoni Business Owners in the United States has firmly rejected President Bola Tinubu’s recent decision to grant a posthumous presidential pardon to the late Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni men—collectively known as the Ogoni Nine—describing the gesture as “insensitive and inadequate.”
According to a statement issued in Benin, Edo State, by the association’s president, Chief Anthony Waadah, the group demands full exoneration rather than a pardon.
Waadah, who also serves as Executive Director of Legbo Group of Companies, USA, argued that the pardon implies guilt and fails to correct the miscarriage of justice that led to the activists’ executions in 1995.
President Tinubu, during his Democracy Day address to the National Assembly, praised the Ogoni Nine as national heroes and announced a presidential pardon under his prerogative of mercy. But Waadah dismissed the move as a political maneuver that dishonors the memory of those who fought and died for environmental justice and the rights of the Ogoni people.
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Waadah stated, “This decision is a gross injustice and a travesty of the struggles and sacrifices of the Ogoni people. A pardon suggests wrongdoing—what we demand is a formal exoneration that acknowledges they were innocent.”
He emphasized that Ken Saro-Wiwa and his comrades were environmental and human rights advocates who were executed after a trial marred by judicial irregularities. “The military regime of General Sani Abacha acted as accuser, defender, and judge. There was no due process,” he said.
Waadah further urged the Nigerian government to revisit the case and issue a public exoneration as a step toward justice, healing, and reconciliation. He stressed that the international community has condemned the executions, and anything less than exoneration only deepens the wound.
“The Ogoni struggle was never a crime. It was a legitimate call for justice, and the lives lost deserve more than political tokenism,” Waadah concluded.
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