Monday Owens Wiwa (born 10 October 1957 in Bori, Nigeria) is a medical doctor and human rights activist. He is the brother of executed Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa, and the son of Ogoni chief Jim Wiwa. Wiwa is an internationally renowned expert on the effects of globalisation, especially as it relates to the highly controversial business practices of Royal Dutch Shell in the Niger Delta. Vice-chairman of the Toronto chapter of the Sierra Club Canada and an active member of Amnesty International, Wiwa is frequently called upon to advocate for development programs in Canada and abroad and to campaign for increased corporate responsibility. This work has taken him to Ireland, which he visits in support of the Shell to Sea campaign. Currently, he is the Global Vice President Human Resource for Health, Director for West Africa and Central Africa and Country Director, Nigeria for Clinton Health Access Initiative.
Education
Wiwa graduated from medical school at the University of Calabar in 1985 and completed his internship at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital. In 1989, he founded his own private clinic in the Ogoni town of Bori.
Activism
The six kingdoms of the Ogoni—Gokana, Ken-Khana, Nyo-Khana, Eleme, Babbe and Tai—are situated in the southeast corner of Nigeria's Rivers State in the heart of the Niger River delta. A tribe of fishermen and farmers, the Ogoni are an ethnic group, numbering over two million people. In 1958, Royal Dutch Shell discovered petroleum in Ogoniland. Over the next few years, Shell identified a total of six oil fields in the Ogoni territory which it began exploiting through a joint venture with the government. Over the next 35 years, this venture—in which the government was a majority partner and Shell the largest private partner—produced 634 million barrels of oil worth US$30 billion. Chevron, ExxonMobil, Texaco, BP, Agip and Elf Aquitaine also have operations in the delta and offshore, but their combined presence is dwarfed by Shell's.
In 1990, Ken Saro-Wiwa, a popular writer, television personality and businessman, founded the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), a non-violent action group which called for Ogoni political self-determination and a greater share of petroleum revenue from the Nigerian government, as well as the ownership of the petroleum beneath their land. MOSOP claimed that pollution resulting from Shell's oil extraction turned their once abundant kingdoms into an ecological wasteland, their air reeking of sulphur, their water holes and creeks poisoned with petroleum, their night sky turned by burning gas flares into a perpetual twilight. For its part, Shell insisted that allegations of environmental devastation in Ogoniland were not true. "Any industrial enterprise, including oil operations, has an impact on the environment, and this is true in Ogoni," Shell said in an official statement. "A further impact on the lives of people in the area comes from the rapidly expanding population which has caused deforestation, erosion and over-farming leading to degraded soil."
At his clinic in the heart of Ogoniland, Owens witnessed an increase in cases of asthma, bronchitis and skin disease caused by the deteriorating environment. To address the social and environmental issues affecting his patients, Owens joined his brother's movement in 1992, becoming the chair of MOSOP's Social Welfare and Health Committee.
As MOSOP's spokesman, Ken brought the plight of the Ogoni people to the world stage. Throughout 1991 and 1992, he spoke at environmental conferences and high-profile world events, most notably addressing the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Peoples in Geneva. In December 1992, MOSOP issued an ultimatum to Shell, Chevron and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, calling for $6 billion in rent and royalties and $4 billion in compensation for environmental devastation—and all within 30 days or it would be assumed that they intended to quit Ogoniland. There was no reply. A month later, a Shell worker was rumoured to have been assaulted and Shell announced it was pulling out of Ogoniland to avoid placing its workers at risk. In February 1993, Shell held a meeting in London to discuss what it should do about the situation in Ogoniland in general and Ken Saro-Wiwa in particular. The government of Nigeria was also working on the "Saro-Wiwa problem".