Ogoni Traditional Indigenous People In Nigeria

Introduction:
The Ogoni traditional Indigenous people is found in the South- South (Niger Delta) of Nigeria they have lived for more than 500 years in the Niger Delta according to Linguistic and Archaeological findings (Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization , 2008) The Ogoni traditional Indigenous people is one of the most powerful traditional ethnic minority group of Nigeria they have an organized social system under which their society operates on traditional customs and practices related to their culture. The problems of the Ogoni Indigenous people started when the British Colonial masters came and divided Nigeria into three main ethnic groups: Hausa- Fulani, Yoruba and Igbo which triggered a willful neglect of other smaller

The increasing environmental pollution in Ogoni land and the continuous neglect of government affected the relationship between Shell Oil Company and the Indigenous people leading to conflict in 1992. The Ogoni traditional people in view of the increasing environmental problems issued an ultimatum to the Shell Oil Company to improve the living conditions of the people and address the social contemporary problems of poor health care, bad roads, lack of schools, unemployment, and underdevelopment of their land by Shell Oil Company In 1993, Shell pulled out of the Ogoni traditional Indigenous people land as a result of the peaceful protest carried out by the people against their land, but the Nigerian military government in 1994, authorized Shell Oil company to resume work on Ogoni

Government not feeling happy for the representation of the country, felt disrespected and decided to arrest Professor Wiwa an environmental and human right activist that represented the traditional indigenous people after the situation had generated in chaos as a result of the killing of four traditional Chiefs on 12 May 1994. The government linked Ken and eight others to these killing and arrested them for their role in the violence that led to the death of the traditional chiefs and sentenced to death by hanging on February 10, 1995 (Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization , 2008) these environmental problems drew the attention of the international community for the need for the protection of the Ogoni traditional indigenous people.
Their protection of the Ogoni traditional Indigenous people is based on Article 27 of ICCPR, which states that ‘’ in those states in which ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities exist, persons to those minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of the group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess, practice their own religion, or to use their own language’’